It’s been a great year for Matt Hancock ... on Google
Matt Hancock's affair during the pandemic made him the most Googled political figure of the year, search trends have revealed.
The former health secretary resigned in June after CCTV footage leaked of him breaching social distancing guidance by kissing a colleague.
Mr Hancock has now been named as the top trending political figure of the year - ranking higher than even Joe Biden, the US president, who entered office in January.
His rule-breaking kiss with Gina Coladangelo also meant the search "Matt Hancock memes" was the most popular search of its kind in 2021, according to Google's "year in search" results released this week.
Memes are typically images shared on social media, in this case of Mr Hancock kissing Ms Coladangelo, which contain witty captions. Some are so widely circulated they are seen by millions of people.
Mr Hancock's affair also made him one of the top two most Googled people this year, alongside footballer Christian Eriksen, who had a cardiac arrest during a Euro 2020 match.
Mr Hancock told the Chopper's Politics podcast last month that he had suffered extreme social media abuse since he stood down as health secretary.
The Conservative MP for West Suffolk said it was "completely unacceptable" that he had been threatened with a "public execution", and these kinds of threats had been in the "high single figures".
Mr Hancock said Tony Blair, the former Labour prime minister, had told him that one of the ways to avoid the abuse was not to look at his notifications on social media.
He said: "I hope he doesn't mind my saying this, but I got advice from Tony Blair [who said]: 'Just don't look at Twitter. What on earth are you looking at that for?'"
