Last night it seemed as if the Matt Hancock WhatsApp messages released by the Telegraph couldn’t get any worse, after the paper published texts showing Hancock’s realtime reaction to his rule-breaking affair being exposed.

Yet somehow new depths have been plumbed in Hancock’s correspondence today. For the paper has published texts between Matt Hancock and Michael Gove.

Despite some friction between the pair – with Hancock at one point fearing Gove was gunning for his job – the published messages show that the two had a remarkably (some might say pathologically) close relationship.

In one exchange from 2021, Hancock texts Gove before a meeting asking what they were trying to achieve. Gove replies that ‘Letting people express concerns in a therapeutic environment before you and I decide the policy’. In response, Hancock adds: ‘You are glorious.’

Six days later Gove appears to message Hancock entirely out of the blue to declare ‘I ❤️you’.

Image: Telegraph

It’s a wonder they got anything done…

Unfortunately the back-slapping doesn’t end there. In another exchange on the anniversary of the first lockdown, Michael Gove, then Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster, decided that it was the apposite time to tell Hancock that ‘U r a hero. Never forget it.’

A similarly dewey-eyed Hancock parried back: ‘You are the true unsung COVID hero.’

Pass the sick bucket please…