Should Matt Hancock go into the celebrity jungle and keep his job?

We all know what the answer to that would be.

Matt Hancock, however, doesn’t need to ask anyone. Amazingly he can just swan off from his £84,000 a year job as an MP and pick up another hefty pay cheque, then waltz back into parliament once Ant and Dec have told him to get out of the jungle.

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Given the state of the government and his party, never in the history of brass necks has a neck been brasser than Matt Hancock’s.

He has come out with some top-level nonsense about why he wants to take up the jungle camp offer.

So why would someone like Matt Hancock do I’m a Celebrity, Get Me out of Here?

He will be spending time with some horrible creatures, snakes and crawlers so he does have some experience.

He has lost his place in the government and was snubbed by Rishi Sunak in the latest re-shuffle, so he knows he has no future as a minister and he can kiss goodbye to the extra £70k a year salary.

It is not the first time Matt Hancock has been kissing in his office.

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Looking further ahead Conservative coats are on shoogly pegs all over the country when the next election comes along.

His constituency of West Suffolk has been a safe Tory seat for a long time but with the Tories as much as 37 percentage points behind Labour in some polls anything can happen.

So, at age 44, he knows he could be looking for a new job.

Rather than the tried and tested route of a career in business with one of the firms he has been dealing with in his previous role as health minister, he has decided his future lies in TV and showbiz.

Hancock said by going into the jungle he can take politics to a wider audience and gives him the opportunity to “deliver important messages”.

There are millions of people who wouldn’t trust Matt Hancock to be sent to the shops for the messages.

It is all poppycock from Hancock. 

People have never been more engaged with politics and if they aren’t, is it likely that a man sacked as a government minister for breaking covid rules by getting hands-on in his office with an adviser he was having an affair with, is the one to engage them?

The decision also shows he is tone-deaf to the concerns of the public.

Businesses are closing, jobs are being lost, people can’t heat their homes and prices at the supermarket are going through the roof all over the UK.

And the response of a high-profile MP, who is supposed to be part of the effort to get the country through the crisis, is to disappear from his constituency for more than a month to take up a highly paid TV job.

His aides reportedly said he can still be in touch with his office from the jungle.

He may be going into the jungle but it seems he is already in cloud cuckoo land.

There is only one reason Matt Hancock is going into the I’m a Celebrity jungle and it is to further the interests of Matt Hancock.

He is not the first politician to be lured to the jungle and the exposure it can provide.

Kezia Dugdale, former Scottish Labour leader controversially took up the offer while still an MSP

She has admitted her decision was "naïve" as well as "brave".

Maybe she genuinely believed she could use it as a platform to get people interested in political issues.

Maybe Hancock also genuinely believes the reasons he is giving.

Kezia Dugdale did state she would donate her MSP salary during her absence to charity as well as some of her jungle fee.

But she was still absent as an MSP.

Dugdale is now director of the John Smith Centre for Public Service at Glasgow University.

Others have tried the politician-turned-celebrity route.

Nadine Dories, Tory MP, has been in the jungle and was paid £80k for it ten years ago. That's a lot of Dingo Dollars, so, it is lucrative.

A warning to Hancock, both Dugdale and Dorries were kicked off the show early, so the time for delivering “important messages” is limited.

Others have taken up posts in celebrity/reality shows after their career in politics.

Ed Balls had the decency to wait until he was no longer an MP before lacing up his dancing shoes on Strictly.

Anne Widdecombe also graced the Strictly floor, but again after she was out of parliament.

If Matt Hancock no longer wants to be an MP, he should do the decent thing and simply resign and his constituents can choose a new MP that wants to represent them.

The message to Hancock should be you can’t have your Kangaroo testicle cake and eat it.