"Only Chris Grayling could lose a rigged election" says political expert
15 July 2020, 19:10 | Updated: 15 July 2020, 21:55
Chris Grayling missing out on Intelligence Chairmanship
Julian Lewis has become the Chair of the Intelligence and Security Committee, at the expense of former Transport Secretary Chris Grayling.
Chris Grayling missed out on becoming the chair of the Intelligence and Security Committee today, after being beaten to the post by Conservative MP Julian Lewis.
The ex-cabinet minister had been involved in a slew of controversies during his time as Secretary of State for Transport and many found the humour in him missing out on this "powerful" post, having been the only candidate up until today.
Adam Bienkov is the Politics Editor of Business Insider and was at the briefing this afternoon where Mr Grayling missed out on the job.
"Chris Grayling was an absolute shoe-in, certain to get this job and the government had taken every step to ensure that he'd got it" said Mr Bienkov, clearly shocked that Mr Grayling had been pipped at the end.
"There seems to have been a coup among both Conservative members and opposition members to install Julian Lewis as the chairman of the committee." He guessed, as it emerges that the nine person committee consisted of three Labour members, one SNP member and the rest Conservative members. That means a majority would have only been reached if someone within the Conservatives had gone against the Prime Minister's candidate.
"Only Chris Grayling could have managed to lose a rigged election, it's quite remarkable."
Eddie wondered "why would people not want Chris Grayling to have this job." Mr Bienkov told him that Mr Grayling is "a controversial figure, when he was in government he certainly had a chequered record as a minister" including granting post-Brexit ferry licences to a company that didn't own any boats.
"It's a complete surprise" said Mr Bienkov. "Everything we'd heard up until this point was that he was a cert to get the job."
