RE: Hot off the press............27 Aug 2022 17:03
Grant Shapps said the prime minister’s record on Ukraine and Covid vaccines outweighed the scandals that brought him down and questioned if his successor could match his achievements.
“The party made a mistake forcing Boris out,” the transport secretary and supporter of Rishi Sunak’s leadership campaign said.
“I completely concede Boris is flawed. We’re all flawed in different ways. There was nothing about Boris’s flaws that you couldn’t have known in advance.”
Mr Shapps pointed to the vaccination programme “which saved thousands of lives, maybe millions around the world” and “busting through the complete impasse of Brexit”.
“He had that force of nature to do things,” he told The Times. “Boris was probably the only person with the force of personality and creativity to do it.”
The comments come as polls suggest many Conservative supporters who wanted Mr Johnson to go at the height of the Partygate and Chris Pincher scandals now wish he was staying in power.
One Opinium survey found 63 per cent prefer the prime minister with only 22 per cent favouring Liz Truss, the likely winner of the Tory leadership race.
https://www.msn.com/en-gb/news/uknews/grant-shapps-calls-ousting-of-boris-johnson-a-mistake-amid-tory-seller-s-remorse/ar-AA119BLf