Cameron loyalist has had chequered career in politics

David Cameron loyalist Grant Shapps has revealed himself as one of the ringleaders behind a bid to oust Theresa May.

With his local grammar school education and a rock star relative who played guitar for The Clash, Mr Shapps has a slightly different background from his contemporaries at the top of the Conservative Party.

He has had a chequered history with the Tories, and also posed problems for Mr Cameron with a series of scandals leading up to his resignation as a minister in November 2015.

After 10 years of soaring through the Tory ranks, his rapid rise stalled at the height of this year’s general election campaign when he was accused of anonymously editing his own entry and those of other Conservative politicians on internet encyclopaedia Wikipedia.

The disclosure that Mr Shapps, or someone acting on his behalf, was suspected of engaging in “sock puppetry” – creating a fake online identity for improper purposes – proved highly embarrassing to the Tories.

At the time, then prime minister Mr Cameron stood by him, insisting he was doing a “great job”, while Mr Shapps strenuously denied the allegations and dismissed them as “bonkers”.

An investigation by Wikipedia found there was no definitive evidence linking the account used to alter the entries with Mr Shapps, and the encyclopaedia administrator who blocked the account and revealed the allegations to the media was severely criticised in an internal inquiry.

But following the 2015 election, Mr Shapps was removed from the post of party chairman and made a minister at the Department for International Development – a move widely seen as a demotion.

He was forced to resign from the post after just six months when it emerged that he had been warned about bullying among young party activists almost a year before 21-year-old Elliott Johnson took his own life.

Mr Shapps denied being informed about any allegations of bullying, sexual abuse or blackmail but quit his post saying that “responsibility should rest somewhere”.

Just months before the Wikipedia scandal, Mr Shapps was accused of having breached the codes of conduct for ministers and MPs when it was revealed he held a second job after entering parliament.

Mr Shapps was exposed as having continued working as a marketer of get-rich-quick schemes under the pseudonym Michael Green.

In February he denied the claims, telling LBC radio: “To be absolutely clear – I don’t have a second job and I have never had a second job whilst being an MP. End of story.”

But a recording obtained by the Guardian captured the MP in 2006 selling business self-help guide Stinking Rich 3 and claiming his products could make listeners a “ton of cash by Christmas”.

In March he came clean, saying he had “over-firmly denied” having a second job and reportedly admitted to the BBC he had “screwed up” on dates.

Grant Shapps had been warned about bullying among young party activists.