Mark Edwin Wallace (born 20 August 1984) is a British journalist, newspaper columnist and political activist. He is Chief Executive of the website

ConservativeHome ConservativeHome is a British right-wing blog which supports, but is independent of, the Conservative Party. It was first established by Tim Montgomerie in 2005 with the aim of arguing for a broad conservative spectrum, which is serious about bo ...

, and is a former Campaign Director of the

TaxPayers' Alliance The TaxPayers' Alliance (TPA) is a pressure group in the United Kingdom which was formed in 2004 to campaign for a low-tax society. The group had about 18,000 registered supporters as of 2008 and claimed to have 55,000 by September 2010. However ...

Early life

Wallace grew up in

Whitley Bay Whitley Bay is a seaside town in the North Tyneside borough in Tyne and Wear, England. It formerly governed as part of Northumberland and has been part of Tyne and Wear since 1974. It is part of the wider Tyneside built-up area, being around e ...

North Tyneside North Tyneside is a metropolitan borough in the metropolitan county of Tyne and Wear, England. It forms part of the greater Tyneside conurbation. North Tyneside Council is headquartered at Cobalt Park, Wallsend. North Tyneside is bordered ...

, and was educated at the Royal Grammar School,

Newcastle upon Tyne Newcastle upon Tyne ( RP: , ), or simply Newcastle, is a city and metropolitan borough in Tyne and Wear, England. The city is located on the River Tyne's northern bank and forms the largest part of the Tyneside built-up area. Newcastle is ...

. He studied

Archaeology Archaeology or archeology is the scientific study of human activity through the recovery and analysis of material culture. The archaeological record consists of artifacts, architecture, biofacts or ecofacts, sites, and cultural landsca ...

St Chad's College , motto_English = Not what you have, but who you are , scarf = , established = 1904 , principal = Margaret Masson , senior_tutor = Eleanor Spencer-Regan , undergraduates = 409 , postgraduates = 150 , website = , coordinates = , location_map ...

, Durham University. After graduating, he worked on archaeological excavations at

Bamburgh Castle Bamburgh Castle is a castle on the northeast coast of England, by the village of Bamburgh in Northumberland. It is a Grade I listed building. The site was originally the location of a Celtic Brittonic fort known as ''Din Guarie'' and may have ...

. His mother Judith Wallace is a Conservative Party councillor on

North Tyneside Council North Tyneside Council is the local authority of North Tyneside in Tyne and Wear, England. It is a metropolitan district council, one of five in Tyne and Wear and one of 36 in the metropolitan counties of England, and provides the majority of lo ...

Political campaigning

In 2005, Wallace was appointed Campaign Manager of

The Freedom Association The Freedom Association (TFA) is a pressure group in the United Kingdom that describes itself as "a non-partisan, classically liberal campaign group, which has links to the Conservative Party and UK Independence Party (UKIP). TFA was founded in ...

(TFA), a libertarian and Eurosceptic pressure group. In the autumn of the same year he was stopped and filmed by Sussex Police under counter-terrorism powers while protesting against the proposed introduction of

Identity Cards An identity document (also called ID or colloquially as papers) is any documentation, document that may be used to prove a person's identity. If issued in a small, standard credit card size form, it is usually called an identity card (IC, ID c ...

outside the Labour Party conference. Wallace co-founded

Better Off Out Better Off Out (BOO) is the name of a non-party campaign that called for the United Kingdom (UK)'s withdrawal from the European Union (EU). It is run by The Freedom Association, a pressure group that describes itself as non-partisan, centre-ri ...

, a cross-party campaign calling for the United Kingdom to leave the European Union, in April 2006. He continues to sit on the Association's Council and Management Committee. In 2007, he became Campaign Director of low-tax pressure group the

. His campaigns at the TaxPayers' Alliance included pressing for transparency on MPs' expenses, and for MPs to be punished for any fraudulent abuse of the system. The same year he featured in the

Channel 4 Channel 4 is a British free-to-air public broadcast television network operated by the state-owned Channel Four Television Corporation. It began its transmission on 2 November 1982 and was established to provide a fourth television service ...

political documentary, '' Make Me a Tory''. In July 2010, Wallace was recruited by

Portland Communications Portland Communications is a political consultancy and public relations agency set up in 2001 by Tim Allan, a former adviser to Tony Blair and Director of Communications at BSkyB. In 2012 a majority stake in Portland was purchased by Omnicom. ...

, a PR and public affairs agency, before becoming Head of Media Relations at the Institute of Directors in March 2012.

Journalism

In April 2013, the right wing political website

announced that Wallace would join its editorial team the following month as Executive Editor, following the departure of its founder,

Tim Montgomerie Timothy Montgomerie (born 24 July 1970) is a British political activist, blogger, and columnist. He is best known as the co-founder of the Centre for Social Justice and as creator of the ConservativeHome website, which he edited from 2005 unt ...

. In January 2020 it was announced that he is becoming the website's Chief Executive. Wallace has stated that his particular interest is in "the way political machines are evolving in the age of low party memberships and digital innovation", and has published investigations into the success of the Conservative Party's campaign in the 2015 general election, and the failure of the Party's subsequent campaign in the 2017 general election. Beyond ConservativeHome, Wallace is a regular commentator in the media. He writes a fortnightly column on Brexit for the ''i'' paper, and has also written on politics for ''

The Guardian ''The Guardian'' is a British daily newspaper. It was founded in 1821 as ''The Manchester Guardian'', and changed its name in 1959. Along with its sister papers ''The Observer'' and ''The Guardian Weekly'', ''The Guardian'' is part of the Gu ...

'', ''

The Observer ''The Observer'' is a British newspaper published on Sundays. It is a sister paper to ''The Guardian'' and '' The Guardian Weekly'', whose parent company Guardian Media Group Limited acquired it in 1993. First published in 1791, it is the ...

'', the ''

Financial Times The ''Financial Times'' (''FT'') is a British daily newspaper printed in broadsheet and published digitally that focuses on business and economic current affairs. Based in London, England, the paper is owned by a Japanese holding company, Ni ...

'', ''

The Times ''The Times'' is a British daily national newspaper based in London. It began in 1785 under the title ''The Daily Universal Register'', adopting its current name on 1 January 1788. ''The Times'' and its sister paper '' The Sunday Times'' (f ...

'' and ''

The Daily Telegraph ''The Daily Telegraph'', known online and elsewhere as ''The Telegraph'', is a national British daily broadsheet newspaper published in London by Telegraph Media Group and distributed across the United Kingdom and internationally. It was f ...

''. Wallace is also a regular paper reviewer for Sky News. In October 2017, he was placed at Number 89 in 'The Top 100 Most Influential People on the Right' by political commentator

Iain Dale Iain Campbell Dale (born 15 July 1962) is a British broadcaster, author and political commentator, and a former publisher and book retailer. He has been a blogger since 2002. In 2005, he became the first openly gay Conservative candidate to c ...

. In September 2019, he was placed at Number 58 in 'The Top 100 Most Influential Conservatives of 2019', again by Dale.

Quiz contestant

Wallace has appeared as a contestant on several television quizzes. In 2004, he represented Durham University on

University Challenge ''University Challenge'' is a British television quiz programme which first aired in 1962. ''University Challenge'' aired for 913 episodes on ITV from 21 September 1962 to 31 December 1987, presented by quizmaster Bamber Gascoigne. The BBC ...

. In 2013, he won ''The Chase''. In 2016, he captained The Beekeepers on '' Only Connect'', reaching the Quarter-Finals.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Wallace, Mark Living people People from Whitley Bay Writers from Tyne and Wear 1984 births Alumni of St Chad's College, Durham British columnists Contestants on University Challenge British journalists British political commentators People educated at the Royal Grammar School, Newcastle upon Tyne