Pandemic Diaries: The inside story of Britain’s battle against Covid

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Perhaps we’ll have to wait for the public inquiry to rule on all that, although Hancock does concede those staff movements could in hindsight have been stopped earlier. If you have an entire wall of shelving to spare, I recommend picking up the 13 volumes of William Gladstone’s diaries.

All the materials for the book have already been made available to the Inquiry, which is the right, and only, place for everything to be considered properly and the right lessons to be learned.

But a month later, on Nov 17 2020, Mr Hancock did receive some scientific advice in favour of loosening restrictions on self-isolation for people contacted by NHS Test and Trace. As Prof Sir Chris Whitty made clear in his December report on the pandemic, the problem the UK faced was that there was not enough tests available.

Replying to this point, a senior civil servant said: “On test and release expecting update today - on high net worth BEIS [Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy] lead but we've asked for it. In the book, the former health secretary also defended his handling of one of the most controversial episodes of the pandemic - the decision to release care home residents from hospital without testing, which was blamed for thousands of deaths. As Health Secretary, Matt Hancock was at the forefront of Britain’s battle against the virus, trying to steer the country through the crisis in a world where information was scarce, judgements huge and the roadmap non-existent. Or of George Osborne whispering into Hancock’s ear how much he reminds him of “Tigger from Winnie the Pooh”.

He gave me some personal advice, after which he assured me that my private life should not affect my public position. In an exchange between Mr Hancock and an aide from 13th December 2020 - five days before the government scrapped plans to relax rules for many over Christmas - the former health secretary discusses when to "deploy" the announcement of the new variant. As he himself admits, he “didn’t have time to keep a detailed diary” during this period - and so the Pandemic Diaries were “pieced together” after the fact.

Dominic Cummings looks like an “odd amoeba you find in jars in school science labs”; Gavin Williamson is dismissed as having all the sophistication and intellect of a seven-year-old. Johnson is no stranger to infidelity, which some say makes Hancock’s claim that the former PM gave him “personal advice” on how to cope with the exposure of his and Coladangelo’s affair one of the most plausible.Matt Hancock asks for forgiveness for breaking the rules, rather than seeking it for his handling of the pandemic.