On his whistlestop tour of County Durham hospitals today, all of which just happen to be in the seats of newly elected Conservative MPs, Health Secretary Hancock was able to reveal why when issuing video statements during lockdown, he was filmed in front of a signed Newcastle United shirt.

“I’m a Newcastle fan because my uncle Dave is a Geordie and when I was growing up in Chester, he used to take me every Christmas to the Man U/Newcastle game," he said. "That was in the era of Kevin Keegan, Alan Shearer, and the heady days when we got almost to the top of the table. It has its ups and downs being a Newcastle fan but it all stems from uncle Dave.”

Mr Hancock was born in Chester, went to university in Oxford and Cambridge, is now the MP for West Suffolk but is, it seems, a Magpie at heart.