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Hello, I'm Sam Holmes and welcome to Spectator Out Loud. Every week, a few of our favourite writers read their pieces from the latest issue.

This week we'll hear from Melissa Kite on the ambitions of Ben Wallace, Mary Wakefield on our misplaced faith in forensics, and James Heel on Eaton's Great Awakening.

First up, Melissa Kite.

Captain Fantastic, the Defence Secretary Ben Wallace is on manoeuvres.

It was during the Afghanistan crisis last summer that Ben Wallace decided he had what it took to be Prime Minister.

He had suspected it before then, according to Friends, but during the evacuation of Kabul, the Defence Secretary came to a definitive conclusion. His prediction that the Taliban

would take Kabul had been proved correct, when other ministers involved had failed to see it coming.

And as the desperate situation played out following the US withdrawal, he hit his stride.

His row with the then Foreign Secretary Dominic Raab over the fall of Kabul was a turning point for the way he saw himself, insiders say.

Raab was caught off guard on holiday. Wallace was on top of his brief, canceling a weekend away,

deploying British troops to the airport as the Taliban advanced, declaring that he had known the game was up months ago. He even defied

public hysteria to speak out against the apparent diversion of military resources to rescue the cats and

dogs of Penn Farthing's animal sanctuary. While much of the establishment echoed public opinion

in defending the airlifting of pooches alongside people, Wallace, a former captain

in the Scots Guards, said he found it upsetting and not something I would be proud of. He took a lot of

stick from farthing, a national hero at the time. It was almost six months later than an inquiry

into this episode concluded that he was right to be concerned. Foreign

office memos released in January suggested that in the middle of the crisis, Boris Johnson had

intervened after his wife Carrie and her animal campaigner friend Dominic Dyer had pushed

for the government to help the dogs. Criky, I remember thinking at the time,

this guy is even standing up to the vegans.

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