MATT Hancock today mounted a desperate pitch to avoid the sack with a gushing victory speech trumpeting Britain’s vaccine rollout.
The Health Secretary put himself at the heart of the jab mission as he fought to save his job following Dominic Cummings’ blistering attacks last week.
Boris Johnson’s former adviser branded Mr Hancock a serial liar and said he should have been fired for “at least 15-20 things” during the crisis.
This afternoon the beleaguered minister used a speech at Oxford University to launch a fightback ahead of his own grilling by MPs next Wednesday.
He said: “The UK vaccination effort has without doubt been the best programme I’ve ever been involved with – it’s been an honour.”
Britain has streaked ahead in its immunisation drive and today marked a milestone of 75 per cent of all adults jabbed.
Claiming “lots of people stop me and ask how we did this”, Mr Hancock said the fast rollout was “no accident” and stemmed from their good decisions.
He added experts believed a vaccine would take more than a year to develop, yet insisted: “But I knew that if everything went right we’d need to be ready for deployment too – and early deployment.”
His speech paid tribute to the “extraordinary project, this extraordinary team – the vaccine heroes as I call them – and the extraordinary response of the public.”
Chris Whitty, Patrick Vallance and Jonathan Van Tam were among the scientists to be singled out for praise.
Recalling an early meeting with JVT as vaccine plans were drawn up, he said: “I specifically remember a then meek and timid professor turning to me when I asked how fast this could possibly be done.
“He said that if everything went right then the very best we could hope for would be 12 to 18 months.
“Who would have thought that just 11 months later we’d be the first country in the world with a clinically authorised vaccine and that professor Jonathan Van Tam would be turning down Strictly.”
