Grant shapps

Liz Truss – Thwarted by a ‘powerful economic establishment, and a lack of political support’ After Liz Truss claimed in a Telegraph essay that the ‘economic establishment’, and flaws in the Conservative Party’s preparations, had prevented her from enacting her policies, Laura Kuenssberg pressed Business Secretary Grant Shapps on whether he agreed with any of Truss’ claims: Liz Kendall – Liz Truss is back with ‘no apology and no humility’ Former Conservative party chair Jake Berry told Kuenssberg that he still agreed in principle with Liz Truss’ policies, even if they weren’t delivered in the correct way. But Liz Kendall went on the attack, saying the Conversatives ‘drove the economy

Grant Shapps – Dominic Cummings won’t resign A media storm has been battering the government this morning after it emerged that the Prime Minister’s key adviser Dominic Cummings could have breached the government’s strict advice against travel during the lockdown. In March, Cummings and his family left London to self-isolate in his native Durham, in order to be near to close relatives should he and his wife be unable to look after their 4 year old son. Cummings and the government insist that he did nothing wrong. The Transport Secretary Grant Shapps defended Cummings’ decision and denied that his job was on the line: GS: Mr Cummings decided that the

What a difference eight months makes. Back in October, Grant Shapps launched a failed coup against Theresa May after a disastrous Tory conference which saw the Prime Minister cough her way through what was supposed to be a set piece speech. Since then, we’ve had Cabinet feuding, backbench rebellions and a lack of leadership from an increasingly beleaguered Prime Minister. Yet despite all this, Shapps has had a change of heart and thinks there is now a chance May could lead the party into the next election – and even possibly win it: ‘I think it’s perfectly conceivable now… that she leads us into the next election and I think potentially

As from the Manchester conference hall I watched Theresa May’s big moment falling apart, as I buried my head in my hands while her agonies multiplied, I suppose I thought this could spell the end for her premiership. But even as I thought that, then reminded myself that the same failure of the larynx has afflicted me in front of a big audience and could strike anyone and is in itself meaningless, I knew such an outcome would be unjust. There may be reasons why the Tories should find a new leader, but the triple-whammy of a frog in the throat, some joker’s idiotic stunt, and the failure of two

The Tory party is in a furious mood following Theresa May’s conference speech. MPs are swearing, ranting, and muttering dire threats about the object of their anger. Helpfully for the Prime Minister, though, the bulk of the anger has little to do with her and everything to do with the two men MPs suspect are trying to destabilise her: Grant Shapps and Boris Johnson. After extensive conversations with MPs from across the intakes, senior backbenchers and Cabinet Ministers, the Spectator understands that these two men will find it far more difficult to walk back into Parliament when it returns on Monday than the Prime Minister will. She was the one

As Labour’s anti-Semitism storm continues to dominate PMQs, it’s almost too easy to forget that the Tories are dealing with a big problem of their own. Today electoral watchdogs are meeting with police to ask for more time to decide whether to launch possible criminal investigations into Conservative campaign spending in the general election. Following a Channel 4 investigation by Michael Crick earlier this year, the party has admitted that it failed to declare £38,000 of general election expenses. While they blame this on an ‘administrative error’, Grant Shapps appeared on Daily Politics to be quizzed by Andrew Neil on the topic. As co-chairman of the party at the time of

Liam Fox, speaking on the World at One, denounced No 10’s suggestions that leaving the EU would mean Britain could see a Sangatte-style ‘Jungle’ emerge in the UK. He said it was a ‘complete red herring’: https://soundcloud.com/spectator1828/liam-fox-on-migrant-camps David Cameron said his prison reform plans were a ‘bold and radical second term agenda’: But there was scepticism about whether it was too little, too late. Juliet Lyon from the Prison Reform Trust said it was ‘certainly true’ that the situation in prison had deteriorated rapidly under the PM’s watch: Grant Shapps spoke about being the fall guy over the Tory bullying scandal. Speaking on Daily Politics, Shapps said a blind eye was

Friends of Andrew Feldman have launched a vigorous defence of the party chairman ahead of this afternoon’s board meeting. A long-serving member of the party board, a Cabinet Minister and a senior Number 10 source have been phoning around offering their backing to him. They argue that when Shapps and Feldman were co-chairmen, there was a clear division of labour with Shapps involved in the ground campaign and Feldman taking charge of the money and administrative matters. So, it should be Shapps—not Feldman—who takes responsibility for what went wrong with Road Trip 2015. One Cabinet Minister tells me that because Lynton Crosby had taken over so much of the traditional role

During the election campaign a cloud hung over Grant Shapps, the then chairman of the Conservative party. In April, he was accused of editing his own Wikipedia profile and those of other politicians by Richard Symonds, a Wikipedia member of staff and Lib Dem activist. Symonds claimed that Shapps ‘or someone acting on his behalf’ used an anonymous account ‘Contribsx’ to make edits that appeared to be to Shapps’ benefit. But there has been no hard evidence Shapps edited the pages and Symonds has been censured by Wikipedia for his actions. Now, it transpires that Wikipedia may not have been acting neutrally. Coffee House has been passed an email that was sent around the board of Wikimedia UK,

Grant Shapps has been given a second ministerial post at the Foreign Office this afternoon in which I understand is part of a rather apologetic rehabilitation process for the minister, who was brutally demoted in the reshuffle. Shapps lost his Cabinet post after allegations that he edited his own Wikipedia page and that of his rivals, and after he ‘over-firmly denied’ that he had continued to do a second job while working as an MP. The first problem has now been cleared up after an internal Wikipedia investigation found against the editor who had accused Shapps of the ‘sock puppet’ edits to his profile. He was demoted to minister of

It is probably reasonably cold comfort to him, given he’s already lost his Cabinet job, but Grant Shapps has today seen a Wikipedia administrator who accused him of editing his own page and those of other ministers reprimanded. Wikipedia conducted an investigation, which concluded there was no evidence Shapps was connected to an account called Contribsx which made edits to his profile. It said the administrator in question, who operated under the name ‘Chase me ladies, I’m the Cavalry’ (but whose real name was Richard Symonds), ‘struggled to provide an accurate timeline’ on blocking the account and coverage of the account in the Guardian. The site’s Arbitration Committee said Symonds

When you tell people you work in or around politics, and if you can break through the initial contempt or boredom, one type of question tends ‎to surface first: ‘what is so-and-so really like?’ There are three answers to that question, only one of them good: ‘They’re exactly how they come across on telly‘, which — unless you’re the likes of Boris Johnson or William Hague — is usually not a compliment. It tends to mean the individual is the kind of wooden, humourless, unthinking, battery hen politician that makes the public yawn, scream or both; ‘They’re a total (uncomplimentary word)’. That word might refer to their private behaviour towards

New communities secretary Greg Clark has the least enviable job in the cabinet: justifying the policy of extending the right-to-buy to housing association tenants. The policy, hastily put together in the early stages of the election campaign, was roundly condemned from across the political spectrum. Dominic Lawson, not a noted socialist, for example pointed out that unlike council homes the state does not own housing association properties and therefore has no right to sell them. It will, in effect, require compulsory purchase – and for the purpose of private gain. After 24 hours in the sunshine, the right-to-buy policy was hardly mentioned by the Conservatives for the rest of the