Grant Shapps
Grant Shapps was appointed Conservative Party Chair and Minister without Portfolio in September 2012.[1] Despite the Conservative's success in the 2015 general election, Shapps was removed from his role as chair of the party, and instead was appointed minister of state at the Department for International Development, losing his seat in the Cabinet. [2]
He is also the temporarily Parliamentary Under-Secretary to the Foreign and Commonwealth Office as of May 2015, carrying out the ministerial portfolio for James Duddridge, [3]
He had previously been appointed a Minister of State at the Department for Communities and Local Government in May 2010.[4]
Contents
Controversies
Michael Green
Before becoming an MP in 2005, Shapps worked under the pseudonym Michael Green. Despite claims to the contrary from the Labour Party, Shapps denied that he continued to use the name whilst in Parliament - with Jeremy Hunt and Dr Liam Fox backing him on twitter. However, on the 16 March 2015, the Conservative Party confirmed Shapps had acted as Green whilst an MP.[5] [6]
Wikipedia
In April 2015 Wikipedia announced they had blocked a user account on 'suspicions that it is being used by the Conservative Party chairman, Grant Shapps "or someone acting on his behalf" to edit his own page along with the entries of Tory rivals and political opponents'. A third of the contributions by the username 'Contribsx' were on Shapps' page; in particular removing embarrassing references of his business activities as Michael Green. The rest of the changes are largely unflattering changes to senior political figures including; Philip Hammond, the foreign secretary; Justine Greening, the international development secretary; George Osborne, the chancellor; and Lynton Crosby, the Conservative's 2015 election campaign strategist.
A spokesperson for Wikipedia said: '...based on the evidence the account is either run by Shapps directly or being run by someone else – an assistant or a PR agency – but under his clear direction.'
Shapps has denied the accusation saying they are '...untrue from start to finish, and [are] quite likely dreamt up by the Labour press office. Sadly it is typical of the smears coming from those who would rather not debate policy and substance.'[7]
Special advisers and aides
External resources
- Michael Crick, Fraud allegations are ‘a political smear’, says Grant Shapps, Channel 4 News, 1 November 2013.
Notes
- ↑ Juliette Jowit, Shiv Malik and Haroon Siddique, Cabinet reshuffle: who has moved so far?, guardian.co.uk, 4 September 2012.
- ↑ The Rt Hon Grant Shapps GOV.UK, accessed 19 May 2015
- ↑ Grant Shapps ProfileGov.UK, accessed 25 September 2015
- ↑ Full list of new cabinet ministers and other government appointments, guardian.co.uk, 13 May 2010.
- ↑ Ian Dunt The tactics Grant Shapps used to escape Michael Green Politics, 16 March 2015, accessed 27 April 2015.
- ↑ Ben Riley-Smith Grant Shapps used Michael Green pseudonym for business interests after becoming an MP Guardian, 16 March 2015, accessed 27 April 2015.
- ↑ Randeep Ramesh Grant Shapps accused of editing Wikipedia pages of Tory rivals Guardian, 21 April 2015, accessed 27 April 2015.
