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Matt Hancock keeps crying – but where are the tears?

Matt Hancock appeared to wipe away tears during an interview on Good Morning Britain
Matt Hancock appeared to wipe away tears during an interview on Good Morning Britain

Well, you can’t say Matt Hancock didn’t try – but his Tear System just wasn’t working.

This morning, the Health Secretary was skipping around Central London on his daily broadcast round, when he stopped by the Good Morning Britain studio to avoid some more of Piers Morgan’s questions and generally congratulate himself.

But when ITV showed him a clip of 81 year-old William Shakespeare becoming the second Briton to receive the coronavirus vaccine, he did something weird. Not just Hancock weird (giggling with tired delirium at nothing funny, eating a waffle on air, insisting he likes grime), either. As the camera cut back to him, he was… sort of, wiping his eye? Crying? Trying to cry?

Eyes closed, head bowed, he dragged his hand across his face a few more times – but where were the tears? His eyes weren’t even red. Does he possess the necessary ducts? It reminded me of the episode of The Simpsons in which Mr Burns gets a vaccination, only for the needle to emerge on the other side of his arm completely dry (“Try this arm, I saw some blood in there the other day!”).

“You’re… quite emotional about that?” Morgan asked, while he and Susanna Reid sat there with what-on-earth-is-he-doing faces. Hancock continued to mop up his 'leak', then gave up, opened his eyes, and affected a sort of sob-giggle as he explained himself.

“Wah – it’s just that it’s been – you know, it’s been such a tough year for so many people and there’s William Shakespeare putting it so simply for everybody, that we can get on with our lives,” he said. It is still unclear whether the former Culture Secretary and parkour enthusiast, knows it wasn’t the actual Shakespeare, but regardless: “It makes you proud to be British.”

The sarcastic phrase “And the Oscar [goes to]” was trending on Twitter by midday. The people, it seemed, just didn’t believe Hancock’s performance – which he’d even rehearsed, in a manner of speaking. In that same hour, speaking on Radio 4, he did a sob-giggle. Last week, he welled-up in the Commons speaking about his late step-father’s ex-wife’s second husband.

Two years ago, in fact, and again on Good Morning Britain, Morgan and Reid asked Hancock what makes him cry. 

“Oooh, gosh, that’s a good question,” he said, visibly panicking because, I suspect, he is unable to cry.

(In fairness, if he had responded with, “I think probably when William Shakespeare becomes the second person in Britain to be vaccinated against Covid-19, giving hope that a devastating global pandemic could one day end”, he’d might have aroused suspicion.)

So Hancock laughed, of course. Then, through stifled guffaws, said, “My children? Um… when something particularly emotional happens at home? Occasionally at a really good film.”

Morgan asked him to name one such film.

“Oh, gosh. I, um… what’s the one about, um… at Christmas. It’s A Beautiful Life?” It’s A Wonderful Life. “It’s A Wonderful Life! It’s a Christmas staple in the Hancock household and it always gets me weepy.”

President Barack Obama wipes a tear from his eye while delivering his farewell address to the American people in 2017 - EPA
President Barack Obama wipes a tear from his eye while delivering his farewell address to the American people in 2017 - EPA

Hmm. There is, of course, nothing wrong with crying, in public or otherwise, and modern male politicians seem more comfortable being seen to do so than their icy forebears. Barack Obama publicly cried at least five times while in office, while George W Bush and Bill Clinton weren’t afraid to be seen doing so, either.

David Cameron wept when William Hague praised him. Vladimir Putin shed a tear at a victory rally. George Osborne cried at Margaret Thatcher’s funeral. Thatcher herself cried when she left office, as did Theresa May. And John Bercow, who it seems fair to guesstimate cries with pride even when he catches his own reflection in the back of a spoon, bawled when he was re-elected Speaker.

Hancock is rightly proud of Britain; he’s also completely knackered after almost a year of working so much that he hasn’t changed that ubiquitous suit and salmon pink tie once. He is – to quote Rag’n’Bone Man, an artist you can fully imagine Hancock telling Nick Ferrari he listens to while skateboarding – only human, after all.

So why the theatrics?