Matt Hancock and ‘lover’ Gina Coladangelo are pictured at launch of student radio station

Matt Hancock and his future ‘lover’ Gina Coladangelo are pictured at the launch of a student radio station in a newly unearthed photo – taken before the future aide became his ‘closest friend’. 

In the archived picture, Mr Hancock takes centre-stage in a tweed jacket and rugby shirt while posing with his hands in his pockets alongside other students working on Oxygen 107.9 FM at the University of Oxford.

Hidden away on the right hand side of the picture is young Mrs Coladangelo, discreetly holding a file of notes. The pair – who both studied politics, philosophy and economics (PPE) – worked together at the student-lead station, with Mrs Coladangelo presenting news and Mr Hancock sports.  

Mrs Coladangelo also attended university alongside Mr Hancock’s osteopath wife Martha, 44 – with the two women graduating around the same time.

While it is not known if Mrs Coladangelo and Mrs Hancock knew each other there, the women remain friends on Facebook today. The Hancocks, who also met at university, have three children, two boys and a girl and Mrs Coladangelo is also understood to be a mother of three.

The archived image of the colleagues-turned-lovers at university was unearthed hours after a 60-second video clip showing Mr Hancock kissing Mrs Coladangelo at the Department for Health emerged – prompting renewed calls for his resignation.

Duncan Baker this morning became the first Conservative MP to go against the Prime Minister – who yesterday personally backed Mr Hancock to stay on and said he ‘considered the matter closed’ after images of their tryst were first released on Friday.

Mr Baker, MP for North Norfolk, told his local newspaper that the Health Secretary ‘has fallen short’ of ‘the appropriate morals and ethics’ that apply to someone in his position – and has told the Government his feelings ‘in the strongest possible terms’. 

On an extraordinary day: 

• Mr Hancock was accused of breaking the ministerial code, which calls for ‘proper and appropriate’ working relationships;
• Downing Street refused to comment on whether he had broken the law as well as social distancing guidance;
• Mr Johnson was said to be considering moving Mr Hancock to a low-profile role;
• Tory MPs stepped up calls for the scrapping of ‘authoritarian’ lockdown rules promoted by Mr Hancock;
• Ministers faced questions about the role played by Mrs Coladangelo, a millionaire former lobbyist married to the founder of the Oliver Bonas retail chain;
• An investigation was launched into how security camera footage of Mr Hancock kissing Mrs Coladangelo in his office was leaked to The Sun;
• Mr Hancock’s wife Martha declined to comment, amid Whitehall rumours that she had thrown him out of the family home;
• Scientists suggested Mr Hancock’s conduct could undermine compliance with remaining Covid restrictions;
• Former top aide Dominic Cummings stepped up his attacks on Mr Hancock, saying his ‘negligence’ during the pandemic had ‘killed people’.

Despite championing draconian restrictions on ordinary citizens, he kissed and embraced Mrs Coladangelo on May 6 – eleven days before the ban on hugging was lifted. Both are married with three children.

The Health Secretary’s wife of 15 years Martha today glanced at reporters as she left the couple’s London home wearing dark sunglasses, as Whitehall rumours claim she threw her husband – who she met at university – out of the family home. 

Some 49 per cent of voters now think Mr Hancock should resign – with just 25 per cent feeling he should stay on, a YouGov poll has found.

The Hancocks and Mrs Coladangelo all reside in London, with Ms Coladangelo living with her multi-millionaire fashion tycoon husband Oliver Tress, founder of fashion chain Oliver Bonas, and their three children in a £4million Wandsworth home; while the Hancocks live six miles away in Queen’s Park.

Mr Hancock, 42, hired Ms Coladangelo as a non-executive director at the Department of Health last September, and the CCTV images of them kissing in the departmental building were allegedly taken on May 6.

The mother of three is a major shareholder – as well as director – of the lobbying firm Luther Pendragon, where she worked from 2002 until June 2014. She studied PPE at Oxford between 1995 and 1998, like Mr Hancock.  

Mr Hancock met Ms Coladangelo when they worked on Oxford student radio together in the 1990s. He was a minority sports reporter on Oxygen FM and they would have socialised together at Exeter College, Oxford.

In April 2020, Ms Coladangelo recalled their student radio days at Oxford in a programme on BBC Radio 4, saying: ‘I read the news and Matt read the sport. I’ve always joked with him that he did the sport because he wasn’t good enough to do the news, but I think it gave him a bit of an early heads up into aggressive questioning from journalists and hacks.’

Ms Coladangelo was discussing his unorthodox approach to broadcasting when he was a sports correspondent in an interview with Mark Coles on ‘Profile on Matt Hancock’. She said: ‘He got one of these special tickets to go and sit in the press box with all these other serious journalists at Twickenham to watch a big match.

‘I think it was Australia playing England, and he actually overslept in his flat and hotfooted it to the train station but didn’t make it to Twickenham from Oxford in time. So he had to get off the train In Reading, find a pub, watch the first half in a pub and go to a phone box outside and report in. So he told a white lie, he pretended he was at Twickenham watching the rugby when he was in fact in a pub in Reading. Successfully, nobody ever found out.’

She was described as Mr Hancock’s ‘closest friend’ from Oxford when he appointed her as an unpaid adviser last year. Mr Hancock has spoken fondly of his days working alongside her on the now-defunct radio station.

As newly appointed Minister for Digital and Culture in 2016, he said: ‘I think I somehow knew, when as a student I worked as minority sports correspondent for Oxygen 107.9 FM, that one day I’d become Minister for radio.’ 

Mr Hancock was described as an ‘obscure figure’ at the radio station where he presented bulletins on rowing, fencing and other minority sports, and the pair also worked there with BBC tennis commentator Gigi Salmon.

A former colleague said today: ‘He volunteered there but he didn’t make much of a name for himself. Gina was the opposite, she was one of the stars of the show. She was quite glamorous and good looking – she had lots of attention from the boys. She also did a bit of sports presenting with Hancock, they would have worked together.’

Ms Coladangelo went on to marry Mr Tress, 53, who is founder of Oliver Bonas, named after his ex-girlfriend Anna who is cousin of Prince Harry’s former partner Cressida Bonas. Ms Coladangelo has worked for her husband’s company as its communications director for the past seven years. 

It is not known exactly when Ms Coladangelo and Mr Tress wed, although Companies House documents show that she changed her surname to Tress in November 2009 – suggesting that they got married that year. 

Mr Tress founded Oliver Bonas in London in 1993 with handbags and jewellery he had brought from Hong Kong where his parents lived, and his wife began working there in June 2014 after 11 years at Luther Pendragon. 

They live together in a five-bedroom detached property believed to be worth around £4million in Wandsworth, South West London, on a quiet tree-lined street with residents-only parking bays that is popular with families.

Many of the cars parked in the street – which is a 20-minute drive away from Central London – are top-of-the range BMW 4x4s and Volvos. Neighbours of Ms Coladangelo remained tight lipped today and refused to comment.

But one visiting workman who left a neighbouring home was unimpressed by Mr Hancock. He said: ‘The guy had been caught bang to rights on film. He will have to do some smart talking to get out of that one with the wife.’

Ms Coladangelo has been spotted leaving Downing Street with the Health Secretary on a number of occasions.  A source told the Sunday Times last year: ‘Before Matt does anything big, he’ll speak to Gina. She knows everything.’

But her new role was not made public despite her getting access to £15,000 from the taxpayer. Asked about her appointment, a Downing Street spokesman said today: ‘The appointment followed all the correct procedures.’

Ms Coladangelo was previously married to London property lawyer Glynn Gibb, 46, who declined to comment yesterday. Mr Gibb was working for one of London’s top real estate firms when he met and married her in 2004.

But the marriage was short-lived and the pair divorced. Mr Gibb is described on LinkedIn as ‘a senior property professional with over 23 years’ sales, marketing and consultation experience’. The director of Fulham property firm Chestertons, who is now married to Samantha Gibb, told MailOnline today: ‘I have no comment to make.’

She was an unpaid adviser for Mr Hancock but claims of ‘chumocracy’ emerged in November when it was revealed she was attending confidential meetings.

Ms Coladangelo was made a non-executive director at the Department for Health in September. She shows off the role on her LinkedIn page and has to ‘oversee and monitor performance’.

She says: ‘I have over twenty years’ experience in business management and marketing and communications, with a focus on retail, healthcare, the third sector and energy.

‘Marketing expertise across media relations, consumer campaigns, social media, digital strategy, strategic collaborations, internal communications, issues management and public affairs.’

But her new role was not made public despite her getting access to £15,000 from the taxpayer. 

While working as Head of Marketing at Oliver Bonas, Ms Coladangelo contributed to a post on International Women’s Day.

She wrote: ‘You don’t have to do what everyone else is doing. Decide what you want and don’t want – and stick to it. It is up to you to live a life you love.’

Ms Coladangelo has access to the Houses of Parliament due to gaining a pass in April and is also said to be bound by the Official Secrets Act. 

The pass reportedly has her husband’s surname on it, but she does not use it for her work. House of Lords peer Lord Bethell sponsored her for the pass.

Away from work, Ms Coladangelo has three children. In 2012 she told the Daily Mail how she had returned to work while being a mother.

She paid for a live-in nanny at their home in south-west London and worked flexible hours.

Ms Coladangelo said: ‘I don’t worry about my children being closer to their nanny, because I spend as much time as I can with them.

‘I would never dream of telling other mothers what to do with their lives. Every woman has to make her own choice.

‘But I feel very fortunate in my education and believe those years shouldn’t be wasted. I want to work to give something back.’  

Her husband Oliver gave an interview to the Financial Times in November 2015 and spoke about their house. He said: ‘Our indulgence was moving to a bigger home in Wandsworth in September (2015). 

‘We barely had a garden in Clapham, but the new house has a bigger garden and more space downstairs.

‘We might be able to build an extension. The mortgage will still be pretty considerable, as retail businesses are not necessarily throwing up a lot of cash. I am not a tycoon.’ 

Ms Coladangelo’s father Rino Coladangelo, 70, is a millionaire businessman and chief executive of an international pharmaceutical company.

Her mother Heather, 69, a former florist, has held the position of secretary in her husband’s business which has interests in China, India and the US.

The couple lives in a 16th century listed former farmhouse in the village of Steeple Morden, on the Hertfordshire-Cambridgeshire border.

Mr Coladangelo is listed in Companies House as Italian but he was educated at University College London and has lived and worked in the UK most of his life.

He is currently chief executive of Rephine Ltd, a Stevenage-based pharmaceutical company which specialises in compliance and regulatory affairs.

According to Linkedin he was a member of the Royal College of Physicians in London and a managing director of an NHS hospital. He speaks English, Italian and French.

Her mother was a director of the Willow Foundation which her daughter was also a director until she resigned in 2018.

The charity, whose life president is former Arsenal goalkeeper and TV presenter Bob Wilson, aims to give ‘uplifting and special days’ to seriously-ill young adults.  

Earlier today,  Tory MP Duncan Baker became the first Conservative MP to go against the Prime Minister – who yesterday personally backed Mr Hancock to stay on and said he ‘considered the matter closed’ – in calling for the Health Secretary’s resignation.

Mr Baker, MP for North Norfolk, told his local newspaper that the Health Secretary ‘has fallen short’ of ‘the appropriate morals and ethics’ that apply to someone in his position – and has told the Government his feelings ‘in the strongest possible terms’.

And earlier today, an unnamed ally who was set to defend Mr Hancock on BBC Radio 4’s Today programme failed to turn up – with presenters Mishal Husain and Martha Kearney forced to explain that he’s ‘not been answering his phone’.

‘We had been expecting to speak to a supporter of Matt Hancock this morning but he’s not been answering his phone. We will keep trying,’ the programme announced.

The ally would have been a rare voice in support of the cabinet minister. 

Tory MP Mr Baker, who was elected in 2019, told his local newspaper the Eastern Daily Press: ‘In my view people in high public office and great positions of responsibility should act with the appropriate morals and ethics that come with that role.

‘Matt Hancock, on a number of measures, has fallen short of that. As an MP who is a devoted family man, married for 12 years with a wonderful wife and children, standards and integrity matter to me.

‘I will not in any shape condone this behaviour and I have in the strongest possible terms told the Government what I think.’

Mr Hancock had put Mrs Coladangelo, a friend from university, on the public payroll only last year. He made no comment on claims he was having an affair with the 43-year-old in his apology yesterday, but added: ‘I have let people down and am very sorry.’

Astonishingly, however, he refused to resign and, after crisis talks in No 10, the Prime Minister personally backed him to stay on and said he ‘considered the matter closed’. 

Last night, Housing Secretary Robert Jenrick backed the PM’s stance, adding that the public should allow Hancock to ‘get on with the job’.

He told BBC Radio’s 4 Any Questions: ‘There’s a task to be done, Matt is on the job doing that, and I think we should allow him to get on with the job.’

He added: ‘The rules have been hard. It is everybody’s duty to follow the rules, but equally I’ve not been somebody who has criticised and condemned people when they’ve made mistakes.’

The decision not to fire Mr Hancock prompted fury last night across the political spectrum, among members of the public and even from business leaders enraged by the Health Secretary’s hypocrisy. 

Tory whips were bombarded with complaints from their MPs. 

A Savanta ComRes snap poll found the public wanted Mr Hancock to quit by a margin of 58 to 25. A separate YouGov survey had the margin at 49 to 25.

Support for the 42-year-old was ebbing even in Downing Street, with one senior figure saying his conduct was ‘gross’ and describing the apology he offered yesterday as ‘pathetic’.

Tory MP Andrew Bridgen said: ‘It will all be down to public opinion – it’s the only thing No 10 cares about. They’re polling, focus-grouping all the time and if that starts showing the public want him out then he could be gone by Monday.’ 

Another Conservative MP said: ‘It’s getting like Animal Farm: all animals are equal but some are more equal than others.’

Sayeeda Warsi, a former Conservative Party chairman, attacked the failure to sack Mr Hancock, saying: ‘It’s a bad decision by Matt and a bad decision by the PM.

‘He’s got a huge amount of questions to answer in relation to Covid contracts, access to parliament, giving out jobs. Is there anything anybody could do any more which would make them resign?’ 

Hannah Brady, of Covid-19 Bereaved Families for Justice, said: ‘Hancock has treated bereaved families with contempt. He’s got to go.’ In a letter to Mr Johnson the campaign group said that Mr Hancock’s continuing presence in the Cabinet was ‘an embarrassment to the Government’.

Labour also called for the Health Secretary to go and branded the Prime Minister ‘spineless’ for failing to sack him.

Party chairman Anneliese Dodds said: ‘The charge sheet against Matt Hancock includes wasting taxpayers’ money, leaving care homes exposed and now being accused of breaking his own Covid rules. His position is hopelessly untenable. Boris Johnson should sack him.’ 

It comes as newly emerged footage appears to show Mr Hancock checking the corridor is clear before closing the door, leaning on it to stop it opening before the pair launch into their passionate embrace.

And speaking to MailOnline tonight, the aide’s millionaire businessman father Rino Coladangelo, 70, refused to comment other than to say: ‘My daughter is a wonderful woman.’

There was no on-camera apology to the public from the Health Secretary yesterday despite questions over whether he had lost his focus on the pandemic.

When Neil Ferguson, a key government adviser, resigned for breaching lockdown rules last year, Mr Hancock said he was right to go and the police should investigate.

Last September Mr Hancock told people not to start romantic relationships because of the risk it could spread Covid.

And on May 16, ten days after his clinch with Mrs Coladangelo, he said people should be ‘careful’ about the new freedom to hug – and suggested they should do so only outside with people who had been fully vaccinated. Liberal Democrat health spokesman Munira Wilson said: ‘Matt Hancock is a terrible Health Secretary and should have been sacked a long time ago for his failures.

‘This latest episode of hypocrisy will break the trust with the British public. He was telling families not to hug loved ones, while doing whatever he liked in the workplace.

‘Rules for them and rules for us is no way to run a country.’

Mystery surrounds the recruitment of Mrs Coladangelo, who met Mr Hancock while volunteering at the student radio station at Oxford University in the 1990s. She worked on Mr Hancock’s failed Tory leadership campaign in 2019 and was secretly taken on as an unpaid adviser at the Department of Health last year before being made a non-executive director on a £15,000 contract.

A Tory source said the pair had become inseparable, adding: ‘They always appeared to be incredibly close. Her status was always slightly mysterious but she went everywhere with him. She was in every meeting.’

The Health Secretary was grilled about his conduct by senior figures from the Cabinet Office’s propriety and ethics team before Mr Johnson decided he would stand by him. The Prime Minister, who was sacked by Michael Howard for lying about an extramarital affair, is said to have been reluctant to hand the media a scalp.

Downing Street refused to comment yesterday on whether Mr Hancock had offered his resignation at any point.

The episode echoes the infamous lockdown-busting trip to Durham made by Mr Cummings last year.

Paul Charles, founder of The PC Agency, a travel consultancy, said: ‘Most people in the country will be asking themselves why they should listen to advice on travel and social distancing when the Health Secretary isn’t even following the rules. The sector has been so badly hit, it’s even more galling now to see ministers in such positions.

‘Most people will be questioning whether Matt Hancock has any position of authority.’

In its letter to the Prime Minister, Covid-19 Bereaved Families for Justice said: ‘If Matt Hancock is unable to find the decency to do the right thing and resign his position it is paramount that you relieve him from it.’

As Downing Street made its first comments it confirmed suspicions that Boris Johnson would not sack his Health Secretary given his own chequered love life, especially after his own alleged four-year affair with American pole-dancing businesswoman Jennifer Arcuri, who he employed as an advisor while Mayor of London. 

Mr Hancock’s kiss with Mrs Coladangelo, a mother-of-three whose husband Oliver Tress is the founder of clothing shop Oliver Bonas, is alleged to have taken place in the corridor outside his office at the Department for Health’s headquarters in central London at around 3pm on May 6 this year – the day of the UK local elections and a week after his first coronavirus jab.  

Mr Hancock is said to have checked the corridor is clear before closing the door, leaning on it to stop it opening before launching into their passionate embrace. The Sun claims they have been having an affair that has been the talk of the department – but it is not known if they remain in a relationship that was a secret until yesterday.  

He married Martha, 44, in 2006 and the couple have three children together. Mrs Hancock looked sad and upset as she left the couple’s home but didn’t speak to reporters about her husband’s alleged infidelity.  Her husband was nowhere to be seen, however, she was still wearing her wedding ring.    

The shutters were closed at the £4.5million South London home Mrs Coladangelo shares with Oliver Tress and their three children yesterday. They are also believed to have a country home near the West Sussex coast. She has been working as an advisor for Mr Hancock since last year, with one source saying: ‘Before Matt does anything big, he’ll speak to Gina’.

But they first met at Oxford University 25 years ago at their college’s radio station and Mrs Coladangelo is friends with Matt Hancock’s wife on Facebook and they have spent time together socially.  

Earlier on Friday, Downing Street said the Prime Minister has accepted Health Secretary Matt Hancock’s apology for breaching social distancing guidelines and ‘considers the matter closed’.

‘You’ve seen the Health Secretary’s statement, so I would point you to that,’ a spokesman for the Prime Minister said after being asked by reporters why Mr Hancock remained in post.

‘I don’t really have anything further to add.

‘The Health Secretary set out that he accepted he had breached the social distancing guidelines and he has apologised for that.

‘The Prime Minister has accepted the Health Secretary’s apology and considers the matter closed.’

Asked whether Boris Johnson had ‘full confidence’ in Mr Hancock, the spokesman replied: ‘Yes.’

Downing Street repeatedly refused to comment on whether Health Secretary Matt Hancock had broken the law after he was pictured kissing a close aide in his Whitehall department.

A Downing Street spokesman told a Westminster briefing: ‘I would point you to his statement. He says ‘I accept I breached the social distancing guidance in these circumstances’.

‘He sets out that he apologises for that and as I say, the Prime Minister has accepted that apology.’

Responding to the PM’s spox claiming the Matt Hancock affair is ‘closed’, a Labour Party spokeswoman said: ‘This matter is definitely not closed, despite the Government’s attempts to cover it up.

‘Matt Hancock appears to have been caught breaking the laws he created while having a secret relationship with an aide he appointed to a taxpayer-funded job. The Prime Minister recently described him as ‘useless’ – the fact that even now he still can’t sack him shows how spineless he is’.

England’s chief medical officer Professor Chris Whitty has declined to comment on Matt Hancock’s actions.

Asked outside the Department of Health, in central London, on Friday afternoon if he had anything to say about the Health Secretary’s apology, Prof Whitty replied: ‘Nothing.’

Welsh First Minister Mark Drakeford has said there are ‘legitimate public interest questions to be answered’ after images were published appearing to show Health Secretary Matt Hancock in an embrace with his aide.

When asked about the matter during a press conference, Mr Drakeford said: ‘I think there is a legitimate distinction to be drawn between what people do in their private lives and what they do in their public lives.

‘I’m not trying to make points about what people do as entirely private matters, but in the case of Mr Hancock it does seem to me that there are some issues that are of genuine public interest.

‘I do think there are questions that need to be answered about whether those rules were broken, the social distancing rules.

‘Mr Hancock himself was very quick to condemn a senior academic from Imperial College when he was found breaching those rules, so I think there are questions, legitimate public interest questions, to answer there.

‘I think there are legitimate public interest questions to be answered about how individuals are appointed if they turn out to be in a different sort of relationship with the minister who was responsible for their appointment.

‘Certainly here in Wales, I always expect the whole of our ministerial team to observe the rules that we expect other people to observe.

‘You can’t make laws for other people and then not be willing to abide by them yourself.’

Mr Hancock was meant to be at Newmarket Racecourse to visit the vaccination centre but a spokesman revealed he cancelled at the last minute ‘early this morning’. 

A Department of Health probe into how the footage from outside Mr Hancock’s office was leaked is expected, with the whistleblower described as a former civil servant who was angry about his ‘brazen’ affair, adding: ‘They have tried to keep it a secret but everyone knows what goes on inside a building like that’.  

The kiss was also 11 days before the Government relaxed safety rules including giving permission for the public to hug at a time where Mr Hancock told people: ‘Always stay two metres away from people you don’t live with’ and using the mantra: ‘Hands, face and space’.

Labour Party chair, Anneliese Dodds, commenting on revelations about Matt Hancock, said: ‘If Matt Hancock has been secretly having a relationship with an adviser in his office – who he personally appointed to a taxpayer-funded role – it is a blatant abuse of power and a clear conflict of interest.

‘The charge sheet against Matt Hancock includes wasting taxpayers’ money, leaving care homes exposed and now being accused of breaking his own Covid rules.

‘His position is hopelessly untenable. Boris Johnson should sack him.’ 

Liberal Democrat Spokesperson for Health and Social Care Munira Wilson MP said: ‘Matt Hancock is a terrible Health Secretary and should have been sacked a long time ago for his failures.

‘This latest episode of hypocrisy will break the trust with the British public. He was telling families not to hug loved ones, while doing whatever he liked in the workplace.

‘It’s clear that he does not share the public’s values. Rules for them and rules for us is no way to run a country.

‘From the PPE scandal, the crisis in our care service and the unbelievably poor test and trace system, he has utterly failed. It is time for the Health Secretary to go.’

A Whitehall whistleblower who leaked the footage and reportedly no longer works for the department, told The Sun it was ‘shocking that Mr Hancock was having an affair in the middle of a pandemic with an adviser and friend he used public money to hire’.

The alleged affair piles even more pressure on Mr Hancock, who was already reportedly battling for his job over his handling of the pandemic Dominic Cummings released WhatsApp messages from the PM that showed Mr Johnson branded him ‘f***ing useless’.

Aside from the serious allegations of an affair, there will also be questions to answer about kissing someone outside his bubble during the pandemic and whether this breaches any of the Covid rules he has helped create. 

Mr Hancock, who is yet to comment, cancelled an event in his West Suffolk constituency yesterday morning where he would have faced questions over the affair and whether he can keep his job. He also deleted an Instagram post from last night where he said he ‘works with some brilliant women’.

Transport Secretary Grant Shapps said it was an ‘entirely personal’ matter for his cabinet colleague.  He told LBC radio: ‘I have seen the photo but, as ever with private matters, I always try to avoid commenting on other people’s personal lives and I think I’ll stick with that tradition here.’

Asked whether the Health Secretary should have been ‘ignoring social distancing’, Mr Shapps replied: ‘I’m quite sure that whatever the rules were at the time were followed. You’ll recall that there was a point at which social distancing rules were changed but, as I say, I don’t want to comment on somebody else’s private life – that is for them.’

The Transport Secretary Grant Shapps has said he would not be commenting on an ‘entirely personal’ matter after pictures were published allegedly depicting his married Cabinet colleague Matt Hancock in an embrace with his closest aide.

Mr Shapps told Sky News that former lobbyist Gina Coladangelo – who the Health Secretary met at university – would have gone through an ‘incredibly rigorous’ process to get the job.

Asked about the rules around appointing friends to Government positions, Mr Shapps said: ‘First of all, I think the actual issue is entirely personal for Matt Hancock. 

‘In terms of rules, anyone who has been appointed has to go through an incredibly rigorous process in Government, so whatever the rules are, the rules will have to be followed.

‘There are no short cuts to that, as anyone who has had anything to do with the appointments system in the Civil Service knows.

‘There are very strict rules in place.’

Labour said the Government needs to answer whether the Health Secretary had broken any rules or there had been ‘conflicts of interest’ in the appointment of his closest adviser. 

It follows reports that Matt Hancock has been having a relationship with a senior aide whom he first met when they were at Oxford University.

An Opposition party spokesman said: ‘Ministers, like everyone, are entitled to a private life.

‘However, when taxpayers’ money is involved or jobs are being offered to close friends who are in a personal relationship with a minister, then that needs to be looked into.

‘The Government needs to be open and transparent about whether there are any conflicts of interests or rules that have been broken’.

Vaccines Minister Nadhim Zahawi said he has ‘every confidence’ in the Health Secretary.

Speaking after a vaccine summit in London, Mr Zahawi told reporters: ‘I have every confidence in Matt Hancock.’

Asked if he was disappointed in Mr Hancock’s behaviour, he said: ‘I’ve said everything I’m going to say on it. He’s apologised. He’s focusing on making sure that we get this (vaccine) sprint, this big sprint up to the 19th of July.’

Asked if it makes it harder for the public to follow the rules: ‘The Secretary of State has apologised and has said everything he needs to say and the Prime Minister has full confidence in his Secretary of State and considers the matter closed.’

But Tim Montgomerie, a former Tory spad and ex-editor of the Conservative Home website, told Channel 4 News that Mr Hancock ‘definitely should resign’.

He also tweeted earlier: ‘For goodness’ sake will any Conservative minister resign after they’ve done the wrong thing? Ever? Will anyone set an example?’

It comes after photographs appearing to show Mr Hancock kissing Mrs Coladangelo were published in the paper.

In the pictures, which appear to be from CCTV footage, Mr Hancock also appears to have his hand on the woman’s backside.

Meanwhile, a source told the Sun that it was ‘shocking that Mr Hancock was having an affair in the middle of a pandemic’.

According to paper, the incident took place around 3pm on May 6, on the day of the local elections. 

But the whistleblower told the Sun that they have been caught having ‘regular clinches together’.

The source told the paper: ‘It has also shocked people because he put her in such an important, publicly-funded role and this is what they get up to in office hours when everyone else is working hard.’

Mrs Coladangelo, who is a director and shareholder at lobbying firm Luther Pendragon, was appointed to the Department of Health as an unpaid adviser in March last year.

Mrs Coladangelo was appointed as a non-executive director at the department in September, meaning she is a member of the board.

She can claim up to £15,000 in taxpayers’ money in the role, though there is no public record of her appointment.

Mrs Coladangelo has had a parliamentary pass, which gives her access to Westminster, since April. Some claimed she started work in March 2020, but her LinkedIn says it was in September last year.

Mr Hancock was due to visit a vaccination centre yesterday in his constituency but pulled out at the last minute because of the sleaze scandal engulfing him.

He cancelled plans to visit the Pharmacy2U centre at Newmarket Racecourse in Suffolk after a photograph emerged of the married politician kissing and embracing aide Gina Coladangelo.

A photographer employed by Pharmacy2U turned up to the racecourse yesterday morning to take photos of the event but said he had been informed that Hancock would not be turning up.

And asked if his no-show was a disappointment, one vaccination worker said: ‘Nope, it’s not the first time he has cancelled on us.’

However, when pressed a manger for Pharmacy2U refused to comment but denied that the Health Secretary had pulled out on previous visits.

The reports of the alleged affair come just weeks after Hancock was pictured enjoying lunch out with wife Martha – the granddaughter of Frederick Millar, 1st Baron Inchyra – in London.

The pair were seen waiting for a taxi after eating at Exmouth market in the capital. 

They were last seen together in public at the England vs Scotland Euro 2020 match at Wembley a week ago. 

Earlier this year, the father-of-three, who has two son and a daughter, was seen playing rugby in the park with his boys. 

Matt Hancock met Gina when they worked on the Oxford University student radio station together in the 1990s.

Hancock was a minority sports reporter on Oxygen FM while studying for a philosophy, politics and economics degree.

Gina who was on the same course and also worked at the radio station where they became close friends. 

They would have studied together, volunteered together on the radio station and socialised together while at Exeter College, Oxford.

She was described as Hancock’s ‘closest friend’ from university when he appointed her as an unpaid adviser last year.

Hancock has spoken fondly of his days working alongside Coladangelo on the now defunct radio station. 

As newly appointed Minister for Digital and Culture in 2016 he said: ‘I think I somehow knew, when as a student I worked as minority sports correspondent for Oxygen 107.9 FM, that one day I’d become Minister for radio.’

The Sky Sports presenter David Garrido worked at the student radio station at about the same time as the couple.

The affair claims come just a day after the Queen expressed her sympathy for the under fire Health Secretary, referring to  him as ‘poor man’. 

The Monarch, 96, made the comment as she welcomed Boris Johnson back to Buckingham Palace for her first in-person weekly audience with the Prime Minister since March last year. 

The monarch told Mr Johnson it was ‘very nice to see you again’ and the premier replied: ‘Lovely to see you again. It has been 15 months…’

The Queen then said: ‘Has it really? It is most extraordinary, isn’t it? I have just been talking to your Secretary of State for Health, poor man, he came to the privy council. He is full of…’

Mr Johnson interrupted and suggested ‘full of beans’ as the Queen then continued: ‘He thinks that things are getting better.’

Mr Johnson replied: ‘Well, they are…’

The expression of sympathy from the monarch comes after Mr Hancock found himself at the centre of a political firestorm after Dominic Cummings published text messages from the PM in which Mr Johnson referred to the Cabinet minister as ‘totally f****** hopeless’.  

The Health Secretary dismissed the significance of the bombshell messages from Mr Johnson.

Mr Hancock said the communications, sent during the height of the coronavirus crisis last year, represented ‘ancient history’.

He said that ‘at times of stress people say all sorts of things in private’ but ‘what matters most is how well you work together’.

The Cabinet Minister also said he is not embarrassed by Mr Johnson’s apparent assessment of his performance.

Mr Cummings, the PM’s former chief aide, stepped up his war with Number 10 last week when he published a number of messages sent to him by Mr Johnson.

In one exchange from March 27 last year, Mr Cummings criticised the Health Secretary over the failure to ramp up testing, with Mr Johnson replying: ‘Totally f****** hopeless.’

Another from the same day saw Mr Cummings complain that the Department of Health had been turning down ventilators because ‘the price has been marked up’. Mr Johnson said: ‘It’s Hancock. He has been hopeless.’ 

On April 27, Mr Johnson apparently messaged Mr Cummings to say that PPE procurement was a ‘disaster’, suggesting that responsibility should be taken away from the Health Secretary.

‘I can’t think of anything except taking Hancock off and putting Gove on,’ the PM said.

Mr Hancock was asked last week, during an interview with the BBC Breakfast programme, how he felt about the PM describing him as ‘hopeless’.

He said: ‘Honestly? It feels like ancient history, right? The vaccine programme is a huge success.

‘At times of stress people say all sorts of things in private. What matters is how well you work together.

‘You are referring to comments apparently from the Prime Minister. I work with the Prime Minister every single day. 

‘We work very strongly together, firstly to protect life and secondly to get the country out of this. That is what matters.’

Told that it must be embarrassing for him to know Mr Johnson had said such things, Mr Hancock replied: ‘No, it isn’t really because of all the things we have delivered together.’

‘We are here talking about the success of the vaccine programme, right? That is something that I very much led from the department, working with the Prime Minister. 

‘He has been a massive supporter of it throughout. Of course we have had obstacles and we have had people that we have had to deal with on the way.

‘But what I can tell you is that the delivery of that programme has been absolutely fantastic.’

Mr Johnson said last week that he has ‘complete confidence’ in Mr Hancock and ‘all of the Government who have been dealing with Covid-19 during the pandemic’.

Meanwhile, last night, Mr Hancock, prior to the publication of the Sun exclusive, posted an Instagram story appealing for more women to ‘get involved in politics’.

In the post, Mr Hancock says he works ‘alongside some brilliant women’.

The post adds: ‘If you’re a woman who wants to get involved in politics swipe up.’

Swiping up takes a person to a link to the Conservative Party page, calling for ‘more Conservative women at every level of the Party and Government’.

Oxford-educated Hancock first became involved in politics working as a Tory campaigner in Guildford, before becoming an economic advisor to then shadow Chancellor of the Exchequer George Osborne.

He was elected as an MP for West Suffolk in 2010 and has held several ministerial jobs, including his most recent and high profile role as Health Secretary, a position he was given in 2018 under then Prime Minister Theresa May.

Matt Hancock’s farmhouse in sleepy Suffolk was closed up yesterday as the Health Secretary became mired in a sleaze scandal.

There was no answer this afternoon at the property in the West Suffolk village, where locals hit out at the hypocrisy of married Hancock being caught in a steamy clinch with aide Gina Coladangelo. 

One woman said: ‘He was quick to criticise Professor Neil Ferguson when it emerged that he had been seeing a mistress during lockdown.

‘More than anything, though, I feel sorry for his wife.

‘This is going to lose him a lot of trust and it couldn’t have come at a worse time – so soon after details emerged of him being branded ‘hopeless’ by Boris Johnson.

‘I really think his job is now very much under threat.’

Another villager added: ‘He has acted hypocritically, there is no social distancing going on in that photo of him with his aide and he’s been quick to warn everyone else to keep apart.

‘Everyone can get themselves in a pickle at one time or other but I can’t believe someone as high-profile as Matt Hancock wasn’t aware that he could be found out.

‘He’s been very much in the limelight over the last year and a half and so how was he expecting this not to come out at some stage?

‘I’ve seen very little with him in the village. He’s mainly in London and his children don’t go to school in the area.