UK names Shapps as new defence secretary

LONDON: Grant Shapps was on Thursday appointed UK defence secretary, succeeding Ben Wallace who formally stepped down after a key role shaping the country’s military backing for Ukraine against Russia.

Wallace, a popular lawmaker once tipped as a potential leader of the ruling Conservative party, was the longest-serving Tory defence secretary since Winston Churchill. He had announced in a newspaper interview in July that he would step down before the next government reshuffle and not contest the next general election, which is expected in 2024.

Prime Minister Rishi Sunak’s office announced Shapps’s appointment, around an hour after he was seen entering 10 Downing Street. Shapps wrote on social media that he was “honoured” to be appointed, saying Wallace had made an “enormous contribution” to UK defence and global security.

“I am looking forward to working with the brave men and women of our armed forces who defend our nation’s security,” he posted on X, formerly Twitter. “And continuing the UK’s support for Ukraine in their fight against Putin’s barbaric invasion.”

Shapps, 54, who has no military experience, briefly served as home secretary last October in Liz Truss’s short-lived government and before that as transport secretary under Boris Johnson. He was also business secretary under Sunak before taking over as minister responsible for energy security and net zero.

Ukrainian Defence Minister Oleksiy Reznikov praised Wallace as a man who “led by example” and “inspired other countries to join in assisting Ukraine” with military support. In Russia, meanwhile, foreign ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said he had “left the battlefield without honour”. She wrote on Telegram that Wallace was “responsible for contaminating Ukrainian land with radiation by supplying depleted uranium shells to the Kyiv regime”.

The UK’s former chief of the general staff, Richard Dannatt, cautioned that Shapps knew “very little about defence”. “It is a complex portfolio, it will take him quite some time to get up to speed,” he told Sky News.