Boris Johnson airbrushed out of Grant Shapps’ spaceport picture

Business secretary hastily deletes tweet after eagled-eyed users pick up on edit

Business secretary Grant Shapps appears to have airbrushed Boris Johnson out of a picture promoting Monday night’s failed Virgin Orbit flight.

Posting on Twitter, Mr Shapps shared an image showing himself and two officials in front of a Virgin rocket at the spaceport in Newquay, Cornwall ahead of Monday’s launch.

But eagle-eyed users noticed that Mr Johnson, the former prime minister, had featured in the original snap, which remains on the Number 10 Flickr account, dated 9 June 2021. It was also previously posted by Virgin Orbit.

Mr Shapps has since deleted the tweet, which said: “The UK govt is delighted to be backing the FIRST ever satellite launch from European soil”.

Part of former PM’s arm can be seen in photo (UK government)

Some Twitter users poked fun at the gaffe, with one asking: “Can he [Mr Johnson] be erased from history as well?” Another took aim at the editing skills on the photo, which appeared to have left behind part of Mr Johnson’s elbow.

“Grant has left part of Johnson’s elbow. Messy,” they said. Another added: “I’m all in favour of erasing Boris Johnson.”

Mr Shapps served as transport secretary under Mr Johnson, who was ousted from office in the summer of last year following a series of scandals.

Boris Johnson left office last summer (PA Wire)

He was among a number of MPs to call for Mr Johnson to leave office after scores of ministers resigned in July in protest at the then PM’s handling of the Chris Pincher affair.

A source close to Mr Shapps said: “Grant wasn’t aware anyone had edited the picture. He removed it as soon as it was pointed out.

“Obviously he wouldn’t endorse anyone rewriting history by removing the former PM from a picture. He was proud to serve in Boris’s government.”

A launch attempt of the Virgin Orbit aircraft overnight on Monday ended in failure after the plane suffered an "anomaly" during the flight.

After taking off from Cornwall, the Virgin Orbit plane flew to 35,000ft over the Atlantic Ocean where it jettisoned the rocket containing nine small satellites towards space.

Organisers of the Start Me Up mission said the rocket - with a variety of civil and defence applications - failed to orbit.

After the launch failed, Mr Shapps told Sky News: "Space is difficult. Everyone’s used to seeing rockets which explode from Japan, what have you.”

He added: "The great thing about this technology is that no-one was harmed. The pilots came back in the aircraft.

"It didn’t work. I’ve no doubt that they’ll pick themselves up, dust themselves off and they’ll go again once they find out what exactly went wrong with it."