British politician Grant Shapps made headlines on Wednesday, October 19, when UK Home Secretary Suella Braverman tendered her resignation. The move marked the second exit of a senior member of Prime Minister Liz Truss’s cabinet since the sacking of former Kwasi Kwarteng and Shapps was reported to be the candidate to replace Braverman.

Similar to Suella Braverman, Shapps supported Rishi Sunak in the Tory leadership election earlier this year. He has also been a vocal critic of Prime Minister Liz Truss and is the frontrunner to replace Braverman as UK’s Home Secretary.

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Who is Grant Shapps?

Grant Shapps is a British politician who is currently the frontrunner to replace Suella Braverman as the next UK Home Secretary. He was a Secretary of State for Transport under former PM Boris Johnson between 2019 and 2022. Shapps is a member of the Conservative Party and is a Member of Parliament (MP), elected from Welwyn Hatfield since 2005.

Shapps has also served as a Minister of State for Housing and Local Government under former PM David Cameron. He became a member of the cabinet as Chairman of the Conservative Party and a Minister without Portfolio.

However, he was later demoted in 2015, when he became the Minister of State for International Development. He resigned from the post in November of the same year following several allegations of bullying inside the Conservative Party.

Shapps was born on September 14, 1968, at Croxley Green, Hertfordshire, England. He has been married to Belinda Goldstone since 1997 and they have three children. The politician is also a cancer survivor, with which he was diagnosed in 1999. He was the first UK Cabinet minister to be jabbed with a COVID-19 vaccine in February 2021, however, tested positive the next year.

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He began his career as a sales representative and later went on to begin a company called PrintHouse Corporation. He left his post as a director in the company in 2009 but is still the majority shareholder.

He is also the founder of How To Corp Limited, where he left his position as a director in 2008. The company was later dissolved in 2008. 19 of Shapps’ business websites were blacklisted by Google in 2012.