Grant Shapps: nice political survivor and dependable Tory assault canine | Grant Shapps

But when he was not included in her cupboard when she turned prime minister, Shapps helped bring Truss down. He was behind an identical putsch throughout Theresa May’s premiership.

Sunak has sought to build a group of unflashy, pragmatic and competent ministers. However, his appointment of Shapps suggests the prime minister realises he must focus extra on punching again on the Conservatives’ waning electoral fortunes.

Shapps, a trusted media performer, has usually been despatched out on the airwaves on the final minute to defend sticky conditions the federal government has discovered itself in.

He is comparatively fashionable throughout the occasion, and in addition some of the exuberant assault dogs keen to take the combat to Labour.

But Tory MPs are already elevating questions on his suitability for such an essential job. After all, it’s usually stated the primary precedence of the federal government is the defence and safety of the nation.

Shapps has served in cupboard for a few years, however solely in home briefs. Most lately, he was the vitality safety and web zero secretary, and briefly – when Truss sought unsuccessfully to shore up her doomed premiership – home secretary. Before that, he served as transport secretary and the Conservative occasion chair.

Though he has now held 5 posts in 12 months, some persons are already questioning why he was picked for defence secretary given there have been ample different contenders with extra related expertise.

Shapps has managed to climb again up the rungs of presidency after two dramatic falls from grace.

Born in Hertfordshire in 1968, Shapps studied business and finance at Manchester Metropolitan University. In 2001, he made an unsuccessful run to turn into MP for Welwyn Hatfield earlier than a profitable try 4 years later. A literal excessive flyer (he holds a pilot’s licence), he was given a job as communities minister within the first Tory-led authorities underneath David Cameron, and was later occasion chair. But he was catapulted from the cupboard in 2015 after a row over bullying of Tory activists. Shapps maintained he had not been warned concerning the problem earlier than the dying of an activist, however tendered his resignation on the grounds that “responsibility should rest somewhere”.

He additionally had a chequered CV. Shapps was accused of presumably breaching the code of conduct for ministers and MPs when it was revealed he had held a second job after getting into parliament, one thing he had repeatedly denied. “To be absolutely clear: I don’t have a second job and I have never had a second job whilst being an MP. End of story,” Shapps stated to LBC on the time.

But a recording from 2006 obtained by the Guardian revealed the MP promoting a business self-help information Stinking Rich 3 and claiming his merchandise may make listeners a “ton of cash by Christmas”. He later came cleansaying he had “over-firmly denied” having a second job, and admitted to the BBC he had “screwed up” on dates.

Shapps was later uncovered as having continued working as a marketer of get-rich-quick schemes underneath the pseudonym Michael Green. He had established an internet gross sales business, HowToCorp, which claimed that shoppers who spent $200 on its software program may “make $20,000 in 20 days guaranteed or your money back”.

It additionally emerged he had deleted information from his Wikipedia pagesuch because the names of donors to his non-public workplace – together with a peculiar edit to omit a reference to his research at Watford grammar faculty for boys.

Shapps has made a reputation for himself in Tory circles as fashionable and attuned with the grassroots, and made himself an indispensable political ally with meticulous spreadsheets used to watch MPs’ gripes concerning the authorities of the day. Prime ministers have realized it’s safer to have him contained in the tent than out.

He is a eager TikToker – placing him at odds with the federal government’s stance, which has banned using the video service on official units.

Shapps is a cousin of Mick Jones, the lead guitarist of the Clash.

In appointing Shapps, one of many nice political survivors of the previous 13 years, Sunak hopes the minister will assist him on the Tories’ ever-narrower path to victory on the subsequent election.