‘I read about my promotion in the Sun’

21 January 2009

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Fraser Nelson meets the new shadow home secretary Chris Grayling: renowned for his pursuit of news stories, he would be a powerful figure under Prime Minister Cameron

When I met Chris Grayling last week, he was about the only member of the shadow cabinet who looked relaxed rather than as though he was nervously awaiting news of the reshuffle. His work on welfare reform had been hailed widely enough for him to feel secure. ‘I’d like to stay in this department. I’m enjoying this job,’ said the then shadow work and pensions secretary. ‘Of course, the job you do is always at the whim of the party leader. Should David Cameron phone up tomorrow and say, “Right, you’re doing something else” — then fine.’

A few days later, Mr Cameron did precisely this. So it is a slightly stunned Mr Grayling whom I meet again just after he has been promoted to shadow home secretary. ‘I had an inkling when I read in the Sun on Monday that I’d be moved,’ he says. ‘It sounded pretty authoritative.’ Mr Cameron called him up a few hours later and confirmed the news. He celebrated by opening a bottle of champagne at his Surrey home — Sainsbury’s, of course.

No one is in the slightest doubt why he was promoted. Mr Grayling has a reputation of being the deadliest hitman on the Tory front bench. He has been behind many of the most embarrassing Labour moments, exposing the NHS’s appalling treatment of Margaret Dixon in the last election campaign and orchestrating the disclosures which led to David Blunkett’s resignation. I chat to one of his team members as I wait for him in his office. ‘So are you one of his feared political assassins?’ I ask. ‘Not really,’ she replies. ‘I’m his wife.’

I should have known better — for Mr Grayling is a strange mix of family man and mercenary, bank manager and Rottweiler. It’s entirely within character for him to work with his wife, and spend more time researching than powerbroking. When I apologise for my mistake, Grayling laughs. ‘David Blunkett in his memoirs describes me, I think, as one of the most ruthless politicians he’s ever come across. Anybody who knows me thinks that is hilarious, because I’m not ruthless at all. Tenacious, perhaps — that comes back to my media background. If you spot a good story, you go in pursuit of it. That’s what I tend to do.’

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