Truss turns to ‘Spreadsheet Shapps’: PM makes Tory data boffin her new Home Secretary – just two weeks after Sunak supporter helped lead MPs’ revolt against her 45p tax plans

• Grant Shapps makes shock return to Cabinet as he’s appointed Home Secretary
• Appointment comes just over a fortnight after he led revolt against PM’s tax cuts
• The 54-year-old was sacked as Transport Secretary by Liz Truss in September 

Grant Shapps made a shock return to the Cabinet tonight little more than two weeks after he spearheaded a rebellion against the Prime Minister’s tax-cutting agenda.

In a sign of the peril Liz Truss now finds her premiership, she has turned to Mr Shapps to become her new Home Secretary following Suella Braverman’s bombshell resignation.

The 54-year-old’s appointment to Ms Truss’s Government comes just over a fortnight after he savaged the PM’s now aborted bid to abolish the 45p tax rate.

Mr Shapps teamed up with fellow former Cabinet minister Michael Gove to lead a successful revolt against the measure during the Conservative Party conference in Birmingham.

He claimed the proposed tax cut for the biggest earners was ‘harming the Government’s economic credibility’.

Mr Shapps was claimed to have been recording the views of fellow Tory MPs on Ms Truss in a spreadsheet, which he was able to read on a new £1,600 Samsung smartphone with a foldout screen.

He is now the second supporter of Rishi Sunak – Ms Truss’s rival during this summer’s Tory leadership contest – to be appointed to one of the four ‘great offices of state’ in the last five days.

Jeremy Hunt replaced Kwasi Kwarteng as Chancellor last week after being sacked by the PM in the wake of their mini-Budget meltdown.

Grant Shapps leaves 10 Downing Street tonight after being appointed the new Home Secretary to replace Suella Braverman

Mr Shapps led a successful revolt against the PM’s plans to abolish the 45p tax rate during the Conservative Party conference in Birmingham

Mr Shapps’ return to the top rank of Government has also stunned Westminster as it comes little more than a month after Ms Truss personally removed him from the Cabinet.

He had been serving as Transport Secretary up until Ms Truss’s appointment as PM in September.

According to Sky News, when the PM informed Mr Shapps of his sacking, she told him he was ‘one of the most competent secretaries of state in Government’ and ‘probably the best communicator’.

But, due to his support for her leadership rival Rishi Sunak, Mr Shapps was said to have been told by the PM there was ‘no room at the inn’.

The married father-of-three had been battling militant trade unions prior to his departure from the Department for Transport.

As Transport Secretary, he was spearheading Government efforts to introduce new laws as part of a crackdown on trade unions causing travel chaos for millions of Britons with their recent spate of national rail strikes.

Mr Shapps became a household name for many Britons when he joined those Cabinet ministers to front Downing Street press conferences during the Covid crisis

The married father-of-three is a former Conservative Party chair, having been appointed to that role by ex-PM David Cameron in 2012

Mr Shapps remained loyal to Ms Truss’s predecessor, Boris Johnson, during the last round of Tory regicide earlier this summer.

In June, Mr Shapps boasted of how he predicted to within one vote the result of a confidence ballot on Mr Johnson’s leadership – adding fuel to rumours of his spreadsheet prowess when it came to monitoring the feelings of his party colleagues.

He had previously accurately forecast the number of Conservative MPs who would back Mr Johnson for leader in 2019.

Mr Shapps also recently claimed he made his own spreadsheets on Covid data to counter SAGE scientists and help block plans for a lockdown last Christmas. 

It was the pandemic that made Mr Shapps a household name for many Britons, when he joined those Cabinet ministers to front Downing Street press conferences during the crisis.

But his handling of travel restrictions during the pandemic were often mocked due to the ever-changing nature of whether and where Britons were able to go abroad.

In July 2020 he was among British holidaymakers forced to self-isolate on their return home from Spain when the Government’s travel restrictions changed at short notice.

Prior to being Transport Secretary, Mr Shapps had previously been a member of the Cabinet when he was appointed Conservative Party chair by David Cameron in 2012.

It was during his spell as Tory chairman, in 2015, when Mr Shapps was forced to admit he had a second job as a web marketing expert under the pseudonym Michael Green when he first became an MP.

This was something he had previously denied.

Mr Shapps backed Remain at the 2016 EU referendum.

He briefly stood for the Tory leadership himself this summer following Mr Johnson’s resignation.

But he dropped out the race before the first round of voting and subsequently backed Mr Sunak.

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