IAN Blackford has renewed calls for Scottish independence after Matt Hancock resigned as Health Secretary.
The SNP’s Westminster leader said Scotland should “say goodbye to the chaos and failure of UK leadership”.
He tweeted: “Massive failure of leadership by @BorisJohnson Hancock should have been sacked. A fish rots from its head. So does this UK Government.
“In Scotland of course we will face a choice on our future. We can say goodbye to the chaos and failure of UK leadership and take a step forward.”
Former Chancellor and Home Secretary Sajid Javid will replace Hancock as Health Secretary, Downing Street has announced.
Images and video showed Hancock in an embrace with aide Gina Coladangelo last month, and the Health Secretary was facing increasing pressure to quit over the breaking of social-distancing rules.
WATCH: Matt Hancock explains his decision to resign over alleged affair
Hancock wrote to Boris Johnson yesterday and said: “The last thing I would want is for my private life to distract attention from the single-minded focus that is leading us out of this crisis.”
Yesterday morning Tory MP for North Norfolk, Duncan Baker, was the first of his party to call on Hancock to resign, saying people in public office should act “with the appropriate morals and ethics that come with that role”.
Throughout the row Douglas Ross’s Scottish Tories have kept tight-lipped.
Alba Party MP for Kirkcaldy and Cowdenbeath Neale Hanvey also criticised Johnson for not having the “guts nor gumption” to sack Hancock.
The former SNP politician who moved to Alba said that for people who have lost a loved one during the pandemic, Hancock’s departure “could not come quickly enough”.
He continued: “Matt Hancock’s resignation counts for much more than his infidelity and related rule breaking; he should have resigned for the catalogue of errors he and his department have presided over throughout the pandemic.
“From his unlawful conduct over procurement [of PPE], his misplaced optimism and arrogance over dodgy Innova tests and his failure to protect care homes, to quote the PM his track record was truly effing hopeless.
“Sadly all these things will have contributed to deaths that were ultimately preventable, and for that he should have resigned and must remain accountable.”
Labour leader Keir Starmer said Hancock was “right” to resign, but added that the PM “should have sacked him”.
LibDem leader Ed Davey went further, saying: “Matt Hancock’s resignation counts for much more that his infidelity and related rule breaking; he should have resigned for the catalogue of errors he and his department have presided over throughout the pandemic.”
There were also questions about Coladangelo’s appointment to her role in the Department of Health and Social Care (DHSC) in the first place.
Labour has demanded the release of all documents relating to the recruitment of Coladangelo to a £15,000-a-year position supposedly holding the Health Secretary to account.
Prior to Hancock’s resignation, the SNP’s deputy Westminster leader Kirsten Oswald, pictured, called for a full independent public inquiry into “Tory sleaze and cronyism without any further delay”.
The Covid-19 Bereaved Families For Justice group, which represents those who have lost loved ones to the pandemic, also added to the calls for Hancock to go.
In a letter to the Prime Minister on behalf of the group, Hannah Brady said she had to bury her dad with mourners keeping two metres apart, while Hancock was breaking the rules.
“To know that the man responsible for public health in this country was ignoring the rules whilst we were unable to hug friends and family at our loved ones funerals, is heart-breaking for bereaved families,” she wrote.
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