Disgraced former UK Minister seeks jungle redemption

LONDON (AP) — Matt Hancock, the U.K’s scandal-prone former health secretary, is seeking an unlikely form of redemption Sunday: attempting to win “I’m A Celebrity… Get Me Out of Here” — a grueling, often gruesome reality show set in the Australian jungle.

Hancock led Britain’s response to COVID-19 in the first year of the pandemic, telling people to stay away from others to protect the health service — then got caught breaking his government’s own rules when video emerged of him kissing and groping an aide he was having an affair with.

He was forced to resign when The Sun newspaper published the CCTV images. This time, though, he knows that camera is on, and is behaving in ways many will find even more distasteful: eating the raw nether parts of camels, cows and sheep, among other things.

Yet the British public apparently does not agree.

The show sends a group of famous people, often C-list celebrities, to the Australian rainforest, subjects them to trials involving spiders and snakes, and allows the public to vote them out one by one. While many Britons have been disgusted by Hancock's appearance, blaming him for apparent failings in the government’s early response to the pandemic, viewers have upended expectations by voting Hancock through to Sunday evening’s final.

The former health chief has already seen the back of Culture Club singer Boy George and former rugby player Mike Tindall, whose wife, Zara, is the niece of King Charles III. Tindall body tackled Hancock in another of the show’s tasks, and has been poking fun at the former health secretary's politicking.

“He clearly wants to win,” said Tindall, adding that Hancock was constantly aiming his t-shirt with voting number at the camera. “Once a politician, always a politician. Always polling for votes.”

Fellow...