The British transport secretary admits that Boris Johnson made his mistakes. But Grant Shapps already misses the ousted head of government: he praises his Ukraine policy, his vaccination program and, last but not least, Brexit. Conclusion: It was a mistake to overthrow him.
UK Transport Secretary Grant Shapps has criticized the Conservative Party’s ouster of Prime Minister Boris Johnson as a grave mistake. “I fully recognize that Boris is flawed,” Shapps told the Times newspaper. At the same time he emphasized: “We are all flawed in different ways.” You could have known beforehand what mistakes Johnson made, these were known because of a biography. The minister said: “Boris was not always a detail person.” Johnson did not read all the documents. “A more direct response to the things that went wrong would have been nice,” Shapps said. But you have to judge the whole picture.
“He had this force of nature to get things done,” the minister said, citing the vaccination campaign that has saved “thousands, maybe millions of lives around the world”, support for Ukraine and “breaking the Brexit impasse”. “Boris was perhaps the only person with the power of personality and creativity to pull this off,” Shapps said.
Johnson announced his departure from the party in early July after massive criticism. Dozens of Conservative MPs had previously resigned from government offices in protest at his leadership style. During his three-year tenure, Johnson had to justify numerous scandals, including the “Partygate” affair about illegal lockdown celebrations at the seat of government. Ultimately, it was his undoing that he had heaved a party colleague into an important parliamentary group office, even though he knew of allegations of sexual harassment against the man.
At least 160,000 members of the conservative Tory party are currently voting on Johnson’s successor. On September 5, the Tories want to announce who will succeed Johnson at the head of the party and government. Foreign Minister Liz Truss and ex-Finance Minister Rishi Sunak are up for election. According to polls, Truss is the favourite, but her competitor Sunak still has a chance.