Some people deal with failure better than others. Matt Hancock, it seems, has spent the past three years trying to get over losing his bid to be leader of the Conservative party. But good news! Finally, Hancock has found solace. Upon being declared leader of the I’m A Celebrity Get Me Out Of Here jungle, he told his campmates his new position ‘more than makes up for’ his previous loss.

Hancock has, yet again, attempted to explain why he is in the game show jungle. ‘What I’m really looking for is a bit of forgiveness,’ he declared.

Whether that was forgiveness for discharging Covid-patients into carehomes, preventing people visiting dying relatives, stopping cancer treatments, failing to procure sufficient PPE for frontline medics or being caught having an extra-marital affair was not completely clear. Yet his desperate need for sympathy extended to being stung by a scorpion. Boy George was not impressed. Even jovial hosts Ant and Dec were sniffy about the scorpion’s diminutive size.

Brave Matt fought back the dizziness to undertake his latest trial: crawling on hands and knees through a giant doll’s house filled with pigeons, snakes, cockroaches and flies, in order to retrieve plastic stars. Scarlette Douglas, host of A Place in the Sun, was ready with a pep talk: ‘If you can do the House of Commons, you can do the House of Horrors.’ Loose Women host Charlene White was less encouraging. ‘Why do you think you keep getting voted for the trials?’ she disingenuously inquired. Let me count the reasons…

Matt got the stars, of course, which meant the camp got fed. His superhuman capacity for withstanding insects, snakes, and dismembered animal innards is beginning to make the whole process boring. But Matt received the applause he so badly craved and was buoyed up for the contest to become camp leader.

Whether ordering celebrities to prepare food, clean out the toilet and gather firewood while doing nothing yourself is a reward or a punishment remains to be seen. Certainly the public seemed confused as to whether they were voting for the person they most or least liked.

Hancock found himself in a head to head run off for leader against camp favourite Mike Tindall. Matt selected Charelene as his deputy. She turned to politics for encouragement: ‘Did you go into the leadership contest thinking you were the underdog?’ Versus Boris Johnson? Even Matt knew the only honest answer was, ‘yes’. ‘Well that’s why you lost,’ came Charlene’s retort. If only life were that simple.

Mike, meanwhile, had much bigger things to worry about: ‘If I lose to Matt I’ll be in big trouble when I go home.’ He’d better start getting his excuses ready. ‘You couldn’t make leader of the Conservatives, but you might be leader of the camp,’ Charlene told Matt, before the pair triumphed in a blindfolded challenge. ‘Does this win feel sweet, especially after you lost to Boris?’ ‘This more than makes up for it,’ grinned Matt.

The rest of the contestants were left to contemplate their fate. ‘He’s done alright,’ said comedian Babatunde Aleshe. ‘But the country’s in a mess,’ replied a perplexed Boy George, who had already ruled out taking orders from a Tory. ‘No, I meant in here,’ said Babatunde.

The news broke. ‘Well done to Matt for winning one leadership contest!’ Charlene tried to rally the troops. ‘Matt Hancock is our leader. Words that no one in Britain ever thought they’d say,’ Chris Moyles, eyes-wide, seemingly in a state of shock, deadpanned to camera.

Hancock, his initial anxiety and awkwardness well and truly gone, got straight down to issuing orders. It was left to lioness Jill Scott to come in with the line of the evening: ‘Just to be clear,’ she asked politely, ‘are these guidelines or rules?’ But there was to be no throwing Matt off course. He was in his element, sat in a special red leader’s chair, directing proceedings. When he said ‘Next slide, please,’ it was like May 2020 all over again.

But in the jungle just as in politics, leadership is never secure for long. Matt’s chair gave way, Coronation Street’s Sue Cleaver laughed, sympathy was already dwlindling. Boy George, Sue and Mike plotted a revolution. Even deputy Charlene opted for her open air camp bed rather than sharing a room with Matt. But a good sleep will no doubt see him fortified and back on our screens, facing whatever trial the show’s producers think will out-gross his last.

In the Australian jungle, just as in the UK, there are reasons to be grateful for Matt Hancock. Half the population blames him for lockdown, while the other half blames him for not locking down sooner, harder and longer. It is rare indeed that, in this politically polarised age, one man can unite the country. Thank you, Matt.

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