Who is Grant Shapps? From ‘Michael Green’ alias to the UK Defense Secretary in uncertain times

There are few ministers with a more colourful background than Grant Shapps.

Following the resignation of Ben Wallace, Rishi Sunak has turned to one of his most loyal supporters to take on the role of Defence Secretary.

Making important decisions for the UK’s Armed Forces may be an intimidating job given the current global instability caused by the war in Ukraine.

And unlike Mr Wallace, Mr Shapps does not have any military experience. But he is nothing if not adaptable – this will be his fifth ministerial brief in less than a year.

In the past 12 months, he has also served as secretary of state for transport, home secretary (for a week), secretary of state for business, energy, and industrial strategy and secretary of state for energy and net zero.

During his 18 years as an MP, he has also been a minister of state for housing and chair of the Conservative Party, and his latest job will add to what is already a remarkable CV.

The millionaire ‘internet marketing guru’

With his local grammar school education and a rock star relative who played guitar for The Clash, Mr Shapps has a slightly different background from many contemporaries at the top of the Conservative Party.

While his family leaned more towards music – brother Andre Shapps played keyboards with post-punk band Big Audio Dynamite and his cousin, Mick Jones, was a founder member of The Clash – Mr Shapps found his passion in politics from a young age, becoming national president of the Jewish youth organisation BBYO.

In his early twenties, 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 in Hertfordshire, being elected the Tory party’s vice chairman the same year.

But Mr Shapps first attracted unwanted headlines back in 2012 when newspapers unearthed him as a millionaire “internet marketing guru” who went by the alias Michael Green.

The exploits of Michael Green included a website, How to Corp, that offered to make customers $20,000 (£12,500) in 20 days “or your money back” and a toolkit titled How To Become Stinking RICH Online which he sold for $197 (£155).

Grant Shapps has been appointed Defence Secretary in a mini reshuffle of Rishi Sunak’s Cabinet (Photo: Wiktor Szymanowicz/Getty)

Writing as Green, Mr Shapps said that: “Since owning an online business has enabled me to live in a $2m home… to drive 3 high-end luxury cars and to own and operate my own aircraft, I suppose a toolkit that exposes every secret used to build that kind of wealth should rightfully sell for say $100,000.”

When the first details began to emerge, Mr Shapps issued a denial, saying that he had stopped operating as Michael Green after becoming an MP in 2005.

However, The Guardian later published an audio recording it had obtained of Mr Shapps continuing to pose as Green from 2006.

David Cameron admitted that Mr Shapps had “made a mistake” with his denial but ultimately stood by him.

Editing his own Wikipedia entries

Mr Shapps’ rapid rise stalled at the height of the 2015 general election campaign when he was accused of anonymously editing his own entry and those of other Conservative politicians on internet encyclopaedia Wikipedia.

The accusation that Mr Shapps, or someone acting on his behalf, was suspected of engaging in “sock puppetry” – creating a fake online identity for improper purposes – proved embarrassing to the Tories.

Mr Shapps denied the allegations and dismissed them as “bonkers” and then prime minister Mr Cameron insisted he was doing a “great job”.

An investigation by Wikipedia found no definitive evidence linking the account used to alter the entries with Mr Shapps, and the encyclopaedia administrator who blocked the account and revealed the allegations to the media was criticised in an internal inquiry.

After the election, Mr Shapps was removed from the post of 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 that post after six months when it emerged that he had been warned about bullying among young party activists almost a year before 21-year-old Conservative activist Elliott Johnson killed himself.

Mr Johnson’s inquest heard that before his death, he claimed he was victimised by fellow Tories and wrote to his “bullies” saying “I could write a hate message but actions speak louder than words”.

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

Competent public performer

Having been instrumental in a rebellion against Theresa May and Boris Johnson’s path to power, Mr Shapps returned to the top table in 2019 as transport secretary.

Planes enthusiast Mr Shapps oversaw the transport department during the Covid-19 pandemic and the ensuing airport chaos as travel resumed, and faced criticism for failing to engage with unions over industrial action.

But the Johnson ally was seen as a competent public performer and often sent out to do the media rounds by the then prime minister.

“He is good on TV because he will say literally anything,” one longstanding colleague told the Sunday Times earlier this year.

When Mr Johnson resigned in June 2022, Mr Shapps launched a Tory leadership bid of his own, but it was short-lived and he became a major backer of Liz Truss’s rival Mr Sunak.

After Ms Truss beat Mr Sunak in the contest, Mr Shapps again found himself demoted to the backbenches.

Seen as a sharp-elbowed plotter, Mr Shapps is said to have recorded Tory colleagues’ doubts about Ms Truss in a running spreadsheet – and those doubts accumulated quicker than most expected.

With Ms Truss on the ropes and Suella Braverman departing as home secretary – before returning to the role under Mr Sunak – Mr Shapps was given one of the great offices of state.

But his time as home secretary lasted less than a week, with the Truss premiership collapsing in record time.

Mr Sunak took over as Prime Minister and Mr Shapps remained in the Cabinet.

He was given the role of secretary of state for business, energy and industrial strategy, and when that department was split in February, Mr Shapps took over as head of the newly created Department for Energy Security and Net Zero.

In that role, he accused Russian President Vladimir Putin of using energy as a “weapon of war”, and his time in office means he should enter the Ministry of Defence (MoD) with a strong grounding in how the war in Ukraine is affecting business and consumers.

As defence secretary, Mr Wallace received widespread praise for his response to the conflict, and was much liked by his party. He was also able to draw on his own experience in the military when addressing difficult issues such funding and as cuts to the Army.

Mr Shapps, widely seen as one of the best communicators in Government, will be seen as having big shoes to fill.

And with the UK having played a prominent role in supporting Ukraine so far, and with the conflicting ongoing, Mr Shapps will need to find his feet quickly at the MoD. The world will be watching.