It’s a tricky life, being a politician, however FT Alphaville favorite Matt Hancock actually doesn’t make it straightforward for himself.

The MP and NFT influencer was again within the information yesterday after sparking a brouhaha over his TikTok apparel. On Sunday Hancock addressed roughly 180k followers by way of the Chinese language spying platform in a 10-second video entitled “Come on Newcastle!”.

Within the prematch clip, the previous well being secretary/actuality present genital-muncher was bedecked in Newcastle United’s trademark black-and-white strip, with a definite signature above the membership brand.

One way or the other regardless of Hancock’s enthusiastic endorsement, the Magpies went on to lose the Carabao Cup remaining later that day, crushed 2-0 by Manchester United.

Issues actually kicked off on Monday, nevertheless, when web customers together with The Guardian’s Jonathan Liew observed that the shirt was the identical one Hancock had auctioned to lift cash for the NHS on the onset of the pandemic:

you’d suppose the perfect a part of that is the very fact he is sporting a signed shirt. in reality the perfect half is that it seems to be the identical signed shirt he promised to public sale for an NHS charity in 2020https://t.co/R65xkv3if3 https://t.co/72BJrSrjyV

— Jonathan Liew (@jonathanliew) February 26, 2023

Naturally, the tweets banged, and Hancock was compelled to reply. In an extra video posted on Monday afternoon, he mentioned:

A load of individuals have been involved about my shirt that I used to be sporting final night time they usually noticed that it’s the identical one which I auctioned for charity a few years in the past.

And what occurred was the man who purchased it then gave it again to me as a present, which is basically sort of him, I’m very grateful. So I’ve nonetheless obtained my beloved signed shirt.

Hancock’s spokesperson added:

Matt put his signed Newcastle soccer shirt up on the market as a part of Chris Evans’ NHS charity attraction to lift cash for scrubs, however the one who purchased it very kindly gave Matt’s beloved shirt again to him as a present.

It’s a “beloved shirt”, obtained it. Issues roughly stopped there, with ad-addled Toon native ChronicleLive wrapping up the affair thusly: “Matt Hancock responds after sporting Newcastle United shirt he auctioned off for NHS staff”.

The general public, it seems, weren’t feeling significantly beneficiant in direction of Hancock’s rationalization. “certain matt” and “on todays [sic] episode of issues that didn’t occur” are two of the video’s high feedback.

So what’s the fact? FT Alphaville went to search out out for the sake of the historic semi-completeness. And, uh, we came upon.

Look mother, I’m an investigative journalist

Could 2020. You’d in all probability been locked indoors for not less than a month, and the world was bizarre. Within the UK, individuals stood on their doorsteps to clap for the Nationwide Well being Service, crossed the roads to keep away from one another and developed spinal points.

In one of many extra admirable superstar interventions of the interval, radio JD Chris Evans hosted a web based public sale that raised greater than £600,000 for Scrubs Superb Scrubs, a stitching collective that made non-surgical scrubs for the NHS.

Singer Sir Rod Stewart bought a signed Celtic high, a number of celebs bought lunches (barely odd, given the general public well being surroundings), and Hancock, then in command of the UK’s pandemic response, auctioned his 2020-21 season Newcastle house shirt, saying:

My Satisfaction & Pleasure. This shirt was gifted to me By Uncle Dave. It was due to him that I’m now a life lengthy supporter and fan of Newcastle United

Signed by the group. The highest as seen hanging behind me on the e-book shelf throughout a lot of my Skype Interviews — I’ll signal it for you additionally in case you like.

The shirt attracted 20 bids, finally promoting for £1,850. The pretty distinct title of the successful bidder was listed on the public sale web page.

Alphaville obtained involved with the successful bidder, who has no obvious hyperlinks to the MP. After calling an organization he directs, the place somebody politely informed us to get misplaced and that the person in query undoubtedly didn’t purchase the shirt, we as a substitute reached out by way of e-mail.

Success! After questioning whether or not our request for remark contravened GDPR guidelines (spoiler: it clearly doesn’t), the bidder supplied his “one and solely” assertion:

I purchased Matt’s signed Newcastle shirt as a result of I cared concerning the charity and I needed to lift cash for Chris Evans’ NHS charity attraction. The shirt is of little worth — nowhere close to what I paid for it — however, once I noticed how a lot it meant to Matt, I needed to reward it again to him as slightly thanks for all his laborious work throughout the pandemic. It’s a disgrace that politicians generally get flack for doing the correct factor.

So there you might be: Hancock, seemingly, stands vindicated, with the TikTok/Twitter/actual life haters put again of their place.

In fact, some questions stay:
— If Hancock successfully acquired what was, in line with market pricing, a £1,850 shirt, ought to have declared it as a present?
— If Hancock nonetheless had possession of the shirt, why did he not then re-auction it to lift much more cash for the NHS? The second highest bid was £1,800, at which value only a few-million non-transferred gross sales would have been sufficient to plug the NHS funding hole.

We put these to Hancock’s spokesperson, who had not answered them at time of pixel. Sources near the MP informed us the concept there was something flawed with this charitable fundraising is “fairly offensive”. Fortunately, we by no means prompt that.

Additional studying:

— Matt Hancock MP is selling NFTs for his former Ukrainian lodgers

— What’s the story, hunky Tory?

— How a lot would your MP should be paid to eat a kangaroo penis on nationwide tv?