THE health secretary is gone, quitting just in time to prevent the anger boiling to melting point.

It was obvious he should have gone Friday morning after the story was published, but what Matt Hancock did was cling on trying to ride out the story.

The hypocrisy of Hancock's actions, defying his own government policy and in breaking the rules he helped set, meant he was finished.

What was causing further anger was the Prime Minister was yet again not decisive in taking the action that anyone could see needed to happen.

Instead the PM just accepted his apology, declaring the matter closed.

The PM thought he could pull off the Dominic Cummings trick again, when he resisted calls to sack him after the Barnard Castle affair.

Does he not realise the public, particularly after all that, could not have stomached a repeat?

The PM is presumably not wanting to look weak, but in not sacking ministers he just appears spineless. Plus he should have sacked the health secretary a long time after being one of the chief reasons for a badly handled pandemic response.

At this point I'm left asking are all government ministers unsackable by this PM?