He is already full minister in the United Kingdom after the explicit confirmation by Ben Wallace, in an interview published yesterday by the Sunday Times, of his intention to leave after more than 4 years – a record since the time of Winston Churchill – the position of head of Defense within the Tory government.
The farewell will be consummated on the occasion of an upcoming reshuffle that the prime minister in office, Rishi Sunak, should put his hand to in September, according to the media.
In place of Wallace, who made it known that he wanted to remain a deputy until the end of the legislature, but then that he had no intention of running again even in Parliament, and that he wanted to leave active politics to devote himself more “to the family”, the candidate the favorite is – according to what the Telegraph writes today – Tom Tugendhat: current number two in the ministry of the Interior and deputy minister for National Security.
Tugendhat is an ex-military career exactly like Wallace and, like him, appears to be an iron guarantor of London’s hard line on the war in Ukraine. Former chairman of the Foreign Affairs Committee of the House of Commons, he is indeed in some ways considered even more hawkish than his outgoing colleague, close to the anti-Russia and anti-China positions of the American neoconservatives.
The only two hypothetical alternatives to him – the Telegraph reports again – could be Minister Penny Mordaunt, current Leader of the House in the Commons, after having been the first and only British woman at the head of Defense for a short period in the team led by Theresa May; or the veteran Brandon Lewis, former holder of Justice, among other things, temporarily left the ranks of government with the rise of Sunak after having been part of it under May, Boris Johnson and Liz Truss.
This article is originally published on ansa.it
