He could have done so at any point over the last two years but, finally, finally, Matt Hancock has done the decent thing and quit.
He could have gone over the Test and Trace shambles.
He could have gone over the failure to properly supply PPE.
Maybe the crony contractors could have got him, or the repeated missed targets, or the increasingly bizarre media appearances.
His boss thought he was useless.
Dominic Cummings said: “I think that the Secretary of State for Health should have been fired for at least 15-20 things.”
In the end, it was a cheap bit of CCTV that did for him, capturing a grubby clinch with an old university friend in his office – in breach of Covid rules while the pandemic was raging outside.
Mr Hancock has been beyond inept. But of all the shambles he has presided over, the care home crisis is by far the most shameful.
Dr Cathy Gardner, still grieving the loss of her dad in an Oxfordshire care home, is taking her case to court. It centres on the errors of judgement and decision-making of Matt Hancock.
That’s the stuff he should be on trial for.
This affair is just the latest sad revelation in a seemingly infinite list of hopeless mistakes and it finished him. But he must not be allowed to slink away.
Dr Gardner’s case and the full light of a public inquiry must shine a light on the behaviour of this most ineffective of ministers.
Mr Hancock flunked all the tests thrown at him over the course of the pandemic, getting all the vital decisions wrong.
Last night, finally, he got one right.
