Wallace’s exit shows the Tories are running out of hope

The announcement by Ben Wallace that he will stand down as Defence Secretary at the next Cabinet reshuffle and then give up being an MP at the general election hardly counts as a sensational turn of events.

There are at least a dozen happenings at the top end of the Tory party from the past few months that put it in the shade where personnel matters are concerned. One thinks, for example, of the ongoing technicolour splurge of the quitting of Nadine Dorries, the ushering of Dominic Raab towards the exit door and of course the abandoning ship of the great blond bombshell himself before he could be made to walk the plank.

Beside all that the dignified and low-key statement given to the Sunday Times by Mr Wallace hardly rates as a breakfast ‘marmalade dropper’ and does not lend itself to breathless commentaries on TV news either. What it does indicate though is a governing party which is running out of steam. And hope.

The most telling lines in Ben Wallace’s statement were his weary observation that ‘I have spent well over seven years with three phones by my bed’ and ‘our approval ratings for supporting Ukraine are among the highest in Europe – over 70 per cent’ – the former being a gauge of personal burn-out and the latter serving as a reminder that robust approval ratings do not attach themselves to any other government undertaking.

Wallace is that rarest of creatures from the last few years of Tory turmoil: a round peg in a round hole. Few would dispute that he has been an excellent Secretary of State for Defence and yet when opportunities to pitch for vacancies in Downing Street came along, he wisely did not pursue them despite his sky-high ratings with the grassroots party membership. Becoming Secretary General of Nato would have offered him a logical political career progression and a prestigious exit route from the Westminster maelstrom, but it was not to be. He will do just fine away from politics and there is actually no shortage of high calibre potential replacements open to Sunak either.

Yet the premature stepping-down of a competent and unflappable senior cabinet minister will give Labour’s preferred narrative of the Tories having ‘given up’ fresh legs heading into parliament’s summer recess. The sense that a changing of the guard is imminent and indeed overdue these days seems to be almost as widely shared on the government benches as it is on the opposition ones.

Compared to the spectacular political collapses that engulfed each of his four most recent predecessors in Downing Street, the failure of Rishi Sunak is much lower key. But he is failing nonetheless, having not managed to outline any kind of compelling and distinctly Conservative vision for the future of Britain.

Wallace was known to be no great fan of this Prime Minister, ironically having lambasted him for ‘abandoning his post’ when he resigned as Chancellor last summer. ‘I don’t have the luxury as Defence Secretary of just walking out the door – I have roles in keeping this country safe. And the guardian of the markets, you know, the guardian of our economy, is the Chancellor,’ he said in a brutal takedown of Sunak when he endorsed Truss for leader.

It turns out that Sunak has not been able to convert Wallace into a superfan in the ensuing months. Indeed, there are reports of at least a smidgen of continuing ill-feeling between the two men. Sunak was seen to distance himself from the Defence Secretary’s recent ‘we are not Amazon’ jibe at Ukraine and some of those around Wallace suspected Downing Street of actively briefing against him.

Hard-working Rishi is a perspirer rather than an inspirer and in terms of the world in which Wallace moves seems also to be an unlucky general. His outgoing Defence Secretary has joined the ranks of seasoned professionals who do not think he has it in him to turn things around. And if those who have seen him up close and personal think that, why should the rest of us disagree?