Ben Wallace, English captain and politician
Robert Ben Lobban Wallace (born 15 May 1970) is a British Conservative Party politician currently serving as Secretary of State for Defence since 24 July 2019 and Member of Parliament (MP) for Wyre and Preston North, formerly Lancaster and Wyre, since 2005.
Before becoming an MP, he was a Conservative list Member of the Scottish Parliament (MSP) for North East Scotland from 1999 to 2003. He stood down in 2003 and moved to Lancashire as he sought selection for a Westminster constituency in England. Following election as an MP and after serving as a backbencher for nearly five years, he was appointed as Parliamentary Private Secretary to the Secretary of State for Justice, Ken Clarke, from 2010 to 2014. Wallace was then made a whip from July 2014 to May 2015. Later, he became Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for the Northern Ireland Office between 2015 to 2016. He was appointed Minister of State for Security and Economic Crime from 2016 to 2019. A supporter of Boris Johnson, Wallace was promoted to the senior cabinet role of Secretary of State for Defence, after Johnson became Prime Minister.
Before politics, he held the rank of captain in the Scots Guards, a regiment of the British Army.