A SQUIRMING Tory chief refused to say 14 TIMES whether there will be a probe into Matt Hancock’s lockdown-busting affair with his aide.
Conservative chairwoman Amanda Milling repeatedly refused to answer questions about a possible investigation in a car-crash interview.
She admitted the public were “frustrated” by the ex Health Secretary’s actions but his resignation means the “matter is closed”.
Mr Hancock paid his lover Gina Coladangelo £15,000 a year to take up a part-time role advising him on his media image.
There have been calls for a probe into whether he declared their relationship and if the appointment broke ministerial rules.
The married pair claim their affair only started a few days before their steamy clinch in the ex Health Sec’s office.
Ms Coladangelo was first brought in as an unpaid adviser in March last year, before being bumped up to a paid job in September.
Labour has called for a probe into whether the appointment broke rules and wants all paperwork related to it released.
Ms Milling repeatedly refused to say if any action will be taken against Mr Hancock, who reportedly wants to return to Cabinet later this year.
Grilled by Sky News host Kay Burley, she initially insisted that she wasn’t on the show to answer questions about the ex Health Sec.
She said: “The matter of the investigation is something that I’m not here to discuss this morning.”
The Tory chief then claimed she couldn’t “get drawn into” talking about probes because they’re all “individual cases”.
But pressed further Ms Milling, who attends Cabinet as a minister, started to insist that it was a “matter for the Government” instead.
When it was put to her the use of £15,000 of taxpayers’ money is also a “matter for the public” she insisted the appointment had been proper.
She said: “There are processes that we go through in terms of appointments, and all the processes were gone through in accordance to those.”
Squirming under the pressure, she added: “Matt has rightly resigned. He recognised that he did wrong. And that’s the point, we now need to move on.
“We’re in the middle of a pandemic. We need to get these vaccines rolled out in order to be able to get the country back to normal.”
She then added: “The public will be incredibly frustrated because at the end of the day we have all made a huge number of sacrifices.
“He’s now resigned. So I would say that this kind of matter is closed.”
Ms Milling admitted the scandal surrounding Mr Hancock had contributed to a “really disappointing result” in Batley and Spen.
The Tories have failed to claim the seat from Labour in a by-election despite being widely tipped to do so.
She said public anger over the ex Health Secretary’s lockdown-breaking affair “was something that came up on the doorstep, I have to be honest about that”.
Voters “had some issues over the weekend in terms of what happened but Matt resigned and that was the right thing to do”, she said.
She added: “This was always going to be really tough battle for us. Governing parties don’t tend to win by elections, and we have to be clear on this.
“This is a labour hold, not a Labour gain. let’s be really clear about this, this is not a great win for the Labour Party,
“It was a very, very close result. We really kind of took the fight to them.”
