 Good evening and welcome to an unscheduled Tiskey Sal. We know it's unscheduled because it's with me Aaron Mustani not Michael Walker but we are here because a huge story has emerged this evening. He's gone. Matt Hancock, the Secretary of State for Health has resigned after he was revealed to have had romantic relations with an aide which breached government COVID guidelines. Now we knew that yesterday. That was the lead story for a great show that we talked about yesterday but now he's resigned and in the last half an hour Matt Hancock himself has posted a video on his Twitter account. Let's watch that now. I've been to see the Prime Minister to resign as Secretary of State for Health and Social Care. I understand the enormous sacrifices that everybody in this country has made that you have made and those of us who make these rules have got to stick by them and that's why I've got to resign. I want to thank people for their incredible sacrifices and what they've done. Everybody working in the NHS across social care, everyone involved in the in the vaccine program and frankly everybody in this country who has risen to the challenges that we've seen over this past 18 months. I'm very proud of what we've done to protect the NHS at the peak, to deliver that vaccine rollout, probably one of the fastest in the world and I look forward to supporting the government and the Prime Minister from the back benches to make sure that we can get out of this pandemic. We're so close to the end and then build back better so that this country can fulfill its potential which is so great and I will do that with all of my heart. So we were getting all the government lines there about build back better and the country's potential so clearly agreed with Boris Johnson number 10 you would imagine Hancock wrote this letter to Boris Johnson offering his resignation that's now live you can see that on Twitter let's just pull that up. The most interesting parts will go to those now here's a quote from Hancock the last thing I would want is for my private life to distract attention from the single-minded focus that is leading us out of this crisis suggests it's not particularly acrimonious between him and Boris Johnson. I want to reiterate my apology for breaking the guidance and apologize to my family and loved ones for putting them through this. I apologize for what being caught. I also need to be with my children at this time I bet you do. We owe it to people who have sacrificed so much in this pandemic to be honest when we have let them down as I have done by breaching the guidance. Again you were caught if you hadn't been caught you wouldn't be saying all this. This for me was kind of the most remarkable thing of the whole letter this is the second graphic to be. I'm so proud that Britain avoided the catastrophe avoided the catastrophe of an overwhelmed NHS and that through full sight and brilliant science we've led the world in a vaccination effort so we stand on the brink of a return to normality now look we do stand on the brink of a return to normality the vaccine effort has been fantastic but 130,000 people died I mean it's a really strange thing to say the NHS wasn't overwhelmed because 130,000 people died is that the reason why it wasn't overwhelmed I mean again that has clearly been written in in league with 10 Downing Street one imagines the letter finishes by saying I will of course continue to support you Boris Johnson whatever way I can from the back benches I would like to thank you for your unwavering support your leadership and your optimism particularly as we work together to overcome this awful disease now this letter like the video has been has just been focus grouped I think right I mean it's just a remarkable letter bit of a bit of public relations management effectively there'll be one more thing I'm gonna say actually sorry this is from Boris Johnson graphic three two Matt Hancock usually both is very proud of what you have achieved not just attacking the pandemic but even before COVID-19 struck us very stage managed the whole thing looks like a highly choreographed means of ensuring that stories don't take a major hit from what's happened it's about mitigating the damage let's go through action this is from Keir Starmer he tweeted this pretty much straight away it's in the last half an hour again Matt Hancock is right to resign but Boris Johnson should have sacked him interesting I sometimes feel like I'm being overly unfair on Keir Starmer so we'll hold back for one second there this is from Angela Rayner a bit more substantial we just get this up the Angela Rayner tweet the deputy leader of the Labour Party why did Boris Johnson back Matt Hancock why did he say that the matter was closed on Friday yesterday and why didn't he have the guts to sack him Boris Johnson has demonstrated that he has another judgment ethics or leadership qualities required of a prime minister a bit more substantial than Keir Starmer like I said this is from the Vora Media's very own Ash Sarka screwing the country won't force a resignation but kissing and aid will this is from Ali Malani things that didn't cause Matt Hancock's resignation herd immunity strategy national PPE shortages delaying first lockdown the failure of testing trace highest covid death rate 130 000 plus things that did cause Matt Hancock to resign kissing advisor and then finally this is from Lily Allen we've not got these but it doesn't matter I'll go over it anyway there was a great tweet from Lilian he's not pouring off when the story came to light yesterday the Met Police will not investigate Hancock for breaches of covid laws due to it being retrospective so we've got a bit of reaction there you've got the story clearly highly choreographed stage managed it's about ensuring the stories don't take a major hit the response from your position is that it's not really showing adequate leadership that the fact he's resigned he's been allowed to step down rather than him being fired I'd like to know your thoughts on that I mean clearly all the time you do have people who are forced to resign and they're not fired it's a face saving exercise should Boris Johnson have sacked him instead of instead of allowing him to resign I don't know but what I think of the sort of two crucial stories that I want to talk about this evening it'd be great to get your sort of thoughts and feedback in the comments is one what what does it mean that Rupert Murdoch can effectively or Rupert Murdoch publication in this case The Sun can effectively release a video and reshape a whole political career can basically get a sector of state for health in the middle of a pandemic we're still in the pandemic get them kicked out what does it say about Britain that one media owner has so much power and that a sector of state for health doesn't go after 130,000 people have died doesn't go after it's found that there was a huge failure when people with covid 19 older people were sent from hospital back into elderly care homes effectively acting like a mini biological weapon that's not enough to do them in what is is when uncle Rupert wants them gone because it's important to say this video which has now been released hadn't been released yesterday we've seen the stills yesterday the video you do not want to see this was was published I believe earlier on today this video was published by The Sun and of course the political editor of The Sun is Harry Cole Harry Cole is the ex-boyfriend of Carrie Simmons who is the wife of Boris Johnson so the fact this has been published in the outlet under Harry Cole's name like I said the political editor would indicate something strange and choreographed is going on and the fact also that yesterday the government said they wouldn't be going any further in terms of trying to work out where it came from who leaked it again that should be very strange because it kind of undermines potentially to imagine national security in any case there's clearly lots of ad hoc stuff going on here people are making up as they go along which doesn't really confirm cohere is congruent with the rules generally speaking so that's the first question Rupert Murdoch has all this power how on earth politically is that possible and I suppose how do you respond really and then secondly Matt Hancock you know he's he's he's gone but like we're saying for all the wrong reasons he's gone for all the wrong reasons now what we were hearing a month or two ago was that Boris Johnson wants him to stick around this is coming from Dominic Cummings and of course his his take on this will be very interesting Boris Johnson wants him to stick around because he would be the person who would effectively take the blame for the catastrophic failure of public policy in 2020 last year in terms of how the government mishandled the crisis and that had a lot of impetus and momentum because of course like I say there was that story about older people going into hospital having COVID suspected COVID and then being allowed straight back into elderly care homes and of course I think I think the best of my recollection about 40 percent of COVID 30 percent of COVID deaths can kind of be connected to that effectively right older people tending to be in elderly care homes and again you know I don't I can't recall the exact numbers but when this story came out about a month ago I mean some of the story some of the the anecdotes were just remarkable you know somebody had gone into hospital then went back into an elderly care home and these were stories that were in on BBC Radio 4 and stay program or whatever and they would say because of that person six seven people subsequently died of course they're in later life you know but they could have lived three four five years and of course it's important to say the manner in which they died really really sad you can't say goodbye to loved ones people probably thought they had a a few years to settle their you know their relationships with the people get things sorted before they passed away that was taken away from them new health secretary is expected to be announced tonight we've got a super chat here from Nisha with 19 pounds 99 as a doctor and as someone who has lost family and friends to COVID I'm disgusted that Hancock resigned over an affair and not the thousands of deaths or thousands of avoidable deaths Starmer as usual useless calling for resignation over an affair I mean I I'm sort of inclined to agree again I don't want to I don't want to say you know Keir Starmer is useless but I found that a very strange tweet and it's important to remember Keir Starmer wasn't calling for his resignation in regards to the care homes crisis I suppose also going forward it does ask a really big question which is if if Matt Hancock can't be trusted on adhering to the very guidelines he himself has said that the public must adhere to if he's somebody who's lied to his wife and his three children to what extent can we believe his account when it comes to COVID-19 you know people say well Dominic Cummings is a lie Boris Johnson is a lie they make things up but if it turns out in three six months a year's time two is time with the inquiry that their testimony say something which puts Matt Hancock in the dog house I mean it doesn't really feel like he's a particularly credible person anymore does it just my thoughts uh Nick Gusset with a fiver says thanks for doing some overtime is this time to bury the bad news of the 20% increase in COVID cases in last 24 hours you know what I have no idea and it's a great question you know we do have to we do have to take account of the fact that you know we joke about people on the left having sort of 5d chess strategies but there can be very intelligent ways of shaping the political conversation which are done at an elite level through things like this and like I said earlier clearly there's an element of cooperation between the Sun newspaper and Ten Downing Street and now there's an element of cooperation in the manner of his resignation between Matt Hancock and Boris Johnson so I don't think it's implausible that there's clearly a level of a level of coordination about all of this however you know the cases have gone up okay they've gone up 20% is that it would you would you really sort of would you wield the sort of Damocles over the the sector of state for health over that story I don't think you would it would have to be something bigger I'm sure the stories would by the way but you know it's a it's a good it's a good hypothesis isn't it Gina Colladangelo that's how you say it is leaving her position on the on the board of department of health kind of interesting maybe it's a sharing we probably can't get those pictures that maybe Fox can find them this is the problem with the last minute show you haven't got a script but the picture of Colladangelo leaving our house putting all the things in the back of a 4x4 very Chelsea very Tory but I also kind of I saw a tweet and said it reminds me of you know being dropped off at halls quite funny quite funny I want to hear what you guys think in the comments and I will get round to any more super chats sat now says hidden camera no way a married man would do that knowledgeably under a normal CCTV cam you know the way he looks around that door and then closes it and then does what he does I do agree it looks very odd it looks it could it could be staged but then also you have to remember Matt Hancock is a very strange man next where does that footage get stored and how does son get it unless it's all a plot blaming the resignation on this affair and not giving him her job spherical objects to the lot of them great 10 pounds superjet here from my egg rubbish opposition means rotten government Stammer out and I think this is obviously a much bigger story than the by-election in battling spend next Friday and we shouldn't just reduce everything to electoralism this is about a failure of government in the biggest public health crisis in a century since the flu pandemic in 1919 but well this is a bigger failure because we've got the technology to actually do something about it but you know I also think it's probably fair to say that the rapid response of number 10 mass you know the sort of resignation by Matt Hancock before Monday and when we talked about him resigning yesterday but it was all you know it was all speculation this is clearly very decisive the video is out the letters out less than 24 hours after we were talking about it it does feel like there is an eye to to the by-election next Friday in battling and spend really big by-election because if the Tories win that it does suggest that you know if there's another general election in 18 months two years time they will take more seats from from labor I mean almost certainly now that's kind of looking priced at the moment what with boundary changes as well so it's a huge huge by-election and you have to remember before the Harlepool by-election which the Tories won by 7000 votes there was growing pressure on Boris Johnson actually you know I'm not a huge fan of the politics is true crime podcast sort of methodology which has been adopted by people like Paul Mason and various other people online you know this weird idea that you know two months ago Boris Johnson was going to go to prison and that you know Keir Starmer was you know needling his position and PMQs and he'd managed to prize out Boris Johnson lying and this was going to be the final ax on Johnson's political career obviously it's ridiculous however there was there was clearly growing pressure and that by-election went took that pressure away I think if they win in battling spend the Tories that is I think clearly there's going to be a huge drawdown and pressure on the conservatives and it's put back in the in the labor you know part of the court and I think they'll clearly be calls I think quite rightly for Keir Starmer to resign so yes I think they're definitely doing that with one eye on the by-election next week this one Jeremy Corbyn Matt Hancock should have resigned over the CERCO contract the care home deaths the PPE disaster and the treatment of NHS workers and carers I think ultimately that should be that should be the response of the leader of the opposition of course Keir Starmer can't do that because just last week on LBC he was eulogising the vaccine program he said what a fantastic job the government has done the watchword for all of 2020 was that Labor supported the government and that they didn't think now is the time to call for resignations of course the only time they did that was with Dominic Cummings uh he he he did call for resignation with regards to Hancock but over this not over the issues that Jeremy Corbyn is talking about Scott Duncan tweets on the hashtag Tiskey sour really tells you something about a country when the last one and a half years of balls up balls ups rather definitely plural leads to zero accountability but a soap opera style tabloid frenzy sends them into a PR face saving sacking lovely way with words um completely completely agree I think it does tell you something quite important about the state of British politics and like I said earlier the fact that somebody like Rupert Murdoch can just change the political conversation like that you know just drop you know the the sort of political equivalent of a dirty bomb and he can just you know change what we are all talking about all 65 million of us in this country are talking about not all 65 million but everybody involved in the political conversation you know the the the realms of what we uh think matters uh change very quickly and clearly that's a limited thing um here's a super chair here from Tamara Law five pounds thanks to Mara there is a better way of running a society these people have become far too comfortable entitled and out of touch we need a true democracy I think that's so true and I think also it's important to say there's a better way of running a media and that is not just a segue to say you know like and subscribe to the channel they should do that too but you know there's been talk for years now of how the political power of Rupert Murdoch on the sun is in decline I think that's inarguable massively inarguable you know they were selling three and a half papers every day I think quite recently like 10 15 years ago now it's below a million it was the biggest selling newspaper in this country from the mid 80s until I think last year it's been overtaken by the Daily Mail so it's not as powerful as it was but clearly clearly we have major problems if still in his 80s Rupert Murdoch can can make and break political careers like this I think it tells us something really really important um we have uh got let me see we've got 2,400 people watching uh I would carry on all day if I could but uh I think we'll probably wrap up in five minutes let's take some comments and where we go from here I guess is quite quite an important question I suppose the big lens to talk about for this is is the is the bio election next week you know if the Tories somehow lose that I mean my god what a what a confluence of strange factors what a confluence of bizarre factors for that bio election Keir Starmer under pressure he's not particularly liked you know I was in Batley and Spen I wrote an article about it from the Varour Media checked out in Varour Media.com we talked about it last night I think later we're going to struggle I think later we're going to really struggle and what was really odd in Batley and Spen was that when I went there I could see barely no Conservative Party literature whatsoever their bet was of course this bet was made before George Galloway turned up they just need to not in the words of George Galloway's election agent they need to not screw up and they would win and obviously some strange stuff is now happening right George Galloway is clearly eating into the labour vote could what's now happening to the Tories be a variable in them not winning and Galloway winning I mean I might look ridiculous next Friday he might just get five six thousand votes which will clearly change the outcome right it's a huge number of votes he won't win with it when I was there last week they were saying sorry earlier that no last week yeah they were saying 16 000 votes would be enough to win it in their opinion they thought it's going to be a turnout of 40 50 percent there were 16 parties participating so 16 000 gets you over the line stories like this might mean that the Tory vote doesn't turn up could be could be so a lot to think about there we've got a comment here from Johnny G. Galloway's a Tory he's not a Tory you can say he's Galloway's an attention-seeking fraud you can say that I mean he's not a Tory right I think it's a really important point he's a social conservative he's said a bunch of things that people disagree with I thought what he said for instance on Julia Sandra was outrageous he's got really troubling views on LGBT rights I think Michael talked about it's really really assertively last night you know I think he needs to really say look my rival is an LGBT woman this kind of rhetoric is not acceptable and so on but he's not a Tory and he votes a conservative in Scotland that's what people say but he's not I mean he's just not a Tory I don't think his the policies he talks about or his views on foreign policy are Tory ones I think it's important to say I think the person's a shyster a charlatan I think they're a liar I think they're running for themselves I think they they're here today gone tomorrow that's fine you can say all those things they really matter in politics he's not a Tory we're gonna wrap up in a second any chance that Dems can win they do have a counsellor and Cleck Heaton which is part of the constituency but absolutely not and I'll finish with this actually this is a really important quote here Corbyn has brains and principle the mainstream media will never allow that combination to gain power and I think that's an important place to finish because Jeremy Corbyn was so widely derided by the media for so long not just the fact that he's unelectable he has all the wrong ideas has bad policies but also how he communicates as a politician is obviously ineffective and he's you know not very good at it you look at his tweet in response to this and to me anyway I mean what do I know politically it seems a much more powerful response than what we've seen from Keir Starmer which is just one line in the words of a lady I spoke to in Battalion Spen wishy-washy and that's how Starmer comes across to the electorate I think we're going to wrap up there come and join us again on Monday Michael Walker will be here as usual hit and subscribe for that we had 2,300 people watching on a lovely lovely summer's evening so I really I'm very grateful for your tuning in you've been watching Tiskey Sour with me Aaron Bustani on Navarra Media good night