With one “steamy clinch”, as the tabloids put it, Matt Hancock has ended his career as Secretary of State for Health and Social Care. But he has left the room with a lingering smell. How he came to be secretly filmed in his ministerial office embracing his lover is an intriguing detail of this story, as it suggests a conspiracy by some members of his staff to eject him. There are questions being asked about his integrity, not least in employing a woman he was in an intimate relationship with as a key adviser, but also about his use of private emails to conduct government business. Contracts worth billions of pounds of public money have been arranged with various of his friends, contacts and relations, without, it is alleged, the scrutiny or record that government regulations require. Hancock has resigned, and already media attention has moved to focus on the new health secretary. But these more important questions about the honesty and integrity of this government still remain.