MATT HANCOCK'S PANDEMIC DIARIES: I needed to tell my wife. It was the worst ... trends now

Fresh from his latest controversy – losing the Tory Party whip for taking part in ITV's I'm A Celebrity…Get Me Out Of Here! – former Health Secretary Matt Hancock has written his Covid Pandemic Diaries. 

In the first part of our serialisation, in yesterday's Daily Mail, he recounted the chilling early days of the crisis when the country faced a human catastrophe on a scale unseen for a century. Here, he tells of the emotional carnage created by his affair with his aide, Gina Coladangelo. 

Thursday, June 24, 2021

What price love? I've always known from novels that people will risk everything.

They are ready to blow up their past, their present and their future. They will jeopardise everything they have worked for and everything that is solid and certain.

Accompanying the joy of falling in love – if you are supposed to be happily married – is the turmoil. You know, with terrible black dread, that sooner or later the relationship must be revealed and everything will come crashing down.

To others it may seem mad, but for the person in love, the judgment to do it anyway feels right. You know there will be consequences and are afraid and ashamed but are compelled to carry on. Each day without discovery is another day without inflicting pain on others.

For some time now, Gina [Coladangelo, communications specialist] and I have been getting closer. Both of us being married, we knew the devastating implications of our feelings for each other.

That we were trying to work out the least painful way of being together when the call came is of no consequence now. People I love are in agony, and I am fighting for my political career.

The day began quite well, with news that we'd overtaken Israel to become the most vaccinated country in the world. Later I went to Parliament for a debate on the use of data in the NHS. I was feeling good and, if truth be told, at the top of my game.

When I saw a missed call on my phone from the editor of The Sun, I thought nothing of it. I know Victoria Newton well, so I had no misgivings as I called her back.

'I'm sorry, but I've got a story about you and Gina. I've got pictures, so there's no point in you denying it, but we're giving you a straight, factual write-up, and won't call on you to resign,' is what she said.

I knew immediately what I had to do. I needed to tell [my wife] Martha right away, because it needed to come from me and nobody else. I also knew I had to tell the children – it was going to be incredibly painful, but I couldn't hide away from them for ever. 

They deserved to know, too. Having the Health Secretary for a husband or father during a global pandemic has been incredibly tough for the family, and I feel wretched.

Knowing The Sun's story would trigger a chain of events I would be unable to control, I decided to go straight home. Before I set off, I called the PM: no stranger to personal turmoil and, it turned out, the kindest of confidants in these ghastly circumstances. He was thoughtful, considered and as supportive as he could be for everyone involved.

I explained it all: that Gina and I had recently fallen in love, and fallen in love very deeply. I told him how I had known Gina for more than half of my life – we first met working together on student radio at Oxford – and I brought her into the [Health] department to help with public communications.

I told him that we had spent a huge amount of time together during the pandemic and fell in love. Foolish as it sounds, it felt completely outside my control.

Boris listened carefully. 'First, I'm going to talk to you as a friend, and then we'll talk about the politics,' he said.

He gave me some personal advice, after which he assured me that my private life should not affect my public position. I thanked him for his support and explained that while I had already decided that I would be with Gina, there were two political problems. First, The Sun is accusing me of bringing Gina into the department because of our affair.

This is categorically untrue. I appointed her for her skills and experience, and our relationship only began very recently, as a result of working so closely together.

The second issue is more difficult: while we never broke the law, social-distancing guidelines had been in place at the time our relationship began a few weeks ago. Nothing happened between us until May, after legal restrictions ended.

We've always been acutely conscious of all that. Nonetheless the recommendation remained that everyone should follow the one-metre-plus rule, and we clearly had not. 'Well, you haven't broken the law. The guidelines aren't binding – they're recommendations. So I will stand by you,' Boris replied generously.

With those words ringing in my head, and in utter turmoil, I headed home to talk to Martha. It was – and remains – the very worst conversation of my life.

Friday, June 25

The Sun published the story at 2am as a 'world exclusive'. The picture was a grainy CCTV image of me and Gina embracing in my departmental office.

It was immediately obvious that the story would be huge.

I knew I had to get out of London, and my wonderful driver Mark came to pick me up very early and take me to stay discreetly in the countryside.

At about 8am, a welcome call from No 10: Dan Rosenfield [chief of staff] to say they'd got my back. He offered any support we might need, including sending a Conservative Party press officer to my house.

By 9am I'd had half a dozen sympathetic messages from

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