Matthew Hancock, English economist and politician, Minister for the Cabinet Office
Matthew John David Hancock (born 2 October 1978) is a British politician who served as Secretary of State for Health and Social Care from 2018 to 2021, and as Secretary of State for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport in 2018 for six months. A member of the Conservative Party, he has been Member of Parliament (MP) for West Suffolk since 2010.
Hancock was born in Cheshire, where his family runs a software business. Hancock studied for a BA in Philosophy, Politics and Economics (PPE) at Exeter College, Oxford, and an MPhil in Economics at Christ's College, Cambridge. He was an economist at the Bank of England before serving as a senior economic adviser and then later chief of staff to Shadow Chancellor of the Exchequer George Osborne.
Hancock served as a junior minister at the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills from September 2013 to May 2015 and was the United Kingdom Anti-Corruption Champion from 2014 to 2015. He attended David Cameron's cabinet as Minister for the Cabinet Office from 2015 to 2016. After Theresa May became Prime Minister in 2016, Hancock was demoted to Minister of State for Digital and Culture. He was promoted to May's cabinet in the January 2018 cabinet reshuffle when he was appointed Secretary of State for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport.
On 9 July 2018, after the promotion of Jeremy Hunt to Foreign Secretary, Hancock was named as his replacement as Secretary of State for Health and Social Care. On 25 May 2019, he announced his intention to stand in the 2019 Conservative Party leadership election. He withdrew from the race on 14 June, shortly after the first ballot. After endorsing Boris Johnson, he was retained in his cabinet in July 2019. He served as Health Secretary during the COVID-19 pandemic in the United Kingdom and oversaw the subsequent rollout of the UK's vaccination programme. In June 2021, after it was shown he had breached COVID-19 social distancing restrictions by kissing and embracing an aide, Gina Coladangelo, in his Whitehall office, Hancock resigned as Health Secretary and was succeeded by Sajid Javid.
1978Oct, 2
Matthew Hancock
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Events on 1978
- 11Feb
Aristotle
Censorship: China lifts a ban on works by Aristotle, William Shakespeare and Charles Dickens. - 27Apr
Watergate scandal
Former United States President Nixon aide John D. Ehrlichman is released from an Arizona prison after serving 18 months for Watergate-related crimes. - 25Jul
In vitro fertilisation
Birth of Louise Joy Brown, the first human to have been born after conception by in vitro fertilisation, or IVF. - 22Oct
Pope John Paul II
Papal inauguration of Pope John Paul II. - 18Nov
Jim Jones
In Jonestown, Guyana, Jim Jones led his Peoples Temple to a mass murder-suicide that claimed 918 lives in all, 909 of them in Jonestown itself, including over 270 children. Congressman Leo Ryan is murdered by members of the Peoples Temple hours earlier.