Who is Grant Shapps? The new defence secretary whose appointment has ruffled feathers

Grant Shapps has been appointed the new defence secretary following the expected resignation of Ben Wallace.

The choice of replacement has ruffled some feathers given his lack of military experience, though he is widely seen as one of the better communicators in government.

The Welwyn Hatfield MP, 54, is no stranger to cabinet, having previously led the energy security and net zero department and held the posts of transport secretary and home secretary.

However, this veteran of government has a slightly different background to many of his contemporaries at the top of the Conservative Party.

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Unlike many of his Tory colleagues, he is not a product of a public school and a top university. He was educated at Watford Grammar School and Manchester Polytechnic.

Halfway through his degree while in the US he nearly died in a car crash and was in a coma for almost a week, before he eventually recovered.

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Ten years later he was diagnosed with Hodgkin lymphoma, undergoing both chemotherapy and radiotherapy, but was successfully treated.

Born in Hertfordshire, Mr Shapps has two musical relations – a brother, Andre Shapps, who played keyboard for the post-punk band Big Audio Dynamite, and a cousin, Mick Jones, who was a founding member of The Clash.

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While his family leaned towards music, the married father-of-three had ambitions to become a politician from a young age, becoming national president of the Jewish youth organisation BBYO as a teenager.

In his early 20s, he set up a marketing and printing business before contesting his first parliamentary seat in 1997.

He eventually ousted Labour’s Melanie Johnson in 2005 to become MP for Welwyn Hatfield, a seat he has held ever since.

Mr Shapps rose through the ranks quickly, becoming vice party chair the same year he was elected and later becoming party co-chair. He has also served as housing minister and minister without portfolio.

However his chequered career has not been without controversy.

Mr Shapps hit a bump in the road during the 2015 general election campaign when he was accused of anonymously editing his own entry and those of other Conservative politicians on Wikipedia.

Then-prime minister David Cameron stood by him while Mr Shapps called the allegations “bonkers”, and Wikipedia later found no definitive evidence linking him to the account used to amend the entries.

But the damage was done and Mr Shapps was removed as party chairman and made a minister at the Department for International Development – a move widely seen as a demotion.

He was forced to resign from the post after just six months when it was alleged that he had been warned about bullying among young party activists almost a year before 21-year-old Elliott Johnson took his own life.

Mr Shapps denied being informed about any allegations of bullying, sexual abuse or blackmail, but quit his post saying that “responsibility should rest somewhere”.

Just months before the Wikipedia scandal, Mr Shapps was also accused of having breached the codes of conduct for ministers and MPs when it was revealed he held a second job after entering parliament.

He was exposed as having continued working as a marketer of get-rich-quick schemes under the pseudonym Michael Green.

Mr Shapps was a Remainer in the EU referendum but has since described himself as a “Brexit moderate” who wants to make leaving the European Union work.

He returned to the backbenchers under the Theresa May administration, when he was involved in a coup to oust her as prime minister.

After she eventually resigned in 2019 he backed Boris Johnson in the leadership contest and was rewarded for his loyalty with a post as transport secretary.

It was seen as a fitting role for Mr Shapps – a plane enthusiast and qualified pilot who once flew to a BBC panel recording in his own private jet.

Mr Shapps’ tenure in the transport department was broadly defined by the response to the COVID pandemic and the ensuing airport chaos as travel resumed.

He also faced criticism for failing to engage with unions over industrial action while starring in bizarre videos to promote the railways.

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But Mr Shapps was seen as a reliable public performer and often sent out to defend the government on the airwaves during the many crises that engulfed the Johnson administration.

Mr Shapps was sacked from the cabinet by Liz Truss after backing Rishi Sunak in the leadership race – but made an extraordinary comeback just six weeks later when he was drafted into replace Suella Braverman as home secretary.

The appointment raised eyebrows given Mr Shapps had been heavily critical of her tax plans, branding them politically “tin-eared”.

Seen as a sharp-elbowed plotter, he is also said to have recorded Tory colleagues’ doubts about Ms Truss in a running spreadsheet.

As it happened Mr Shapps was home secretary for less than a week, with the Truss premiership collapsing in record time.

When Rishi Sunak took over, he was made business and energy secretary and when that department split, he became head of the energy and net zero department.

His new post in defence comes against a backdrop of war in Europe and with his predecessor warning the world will become more insecure and unstable.

Unlike Mr Wallace, he has no military experience and will be seen as having big shoes to fill.

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