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Politics On the Edge: A Memoir From Within
A searing insider's account of ten extraordinary years in Parliament from Rory Stewart, former Cabinet minister and co-presenter of breakout hit podcast The Rest Is Politics
'An instant classic' MARINA HYDE
'At last a politician who can write' SEBASTIAN FAULKS
'Candid, angry, funny, and self-revelatory' JONATHAN DIMBLEBY
'Exceptional' RAFAEL BEHR
The Times pick for *The Biggest Books of the Autumn*
Over the course of a decade from 2010, Rory Stewart went from being a political outsider to standing for prime minister - before being sacked from a Conservative Party that he had come to barely recognise.
Tackling ministerial briefs on flood response and prison violence, engaging with conflict and poverty abroad as a foreign minister, and Brexit as a Cabinet minister, Stewart learned first-hand how profoundly hollow our democracy and government had become.
Cronyism, ignorance and sheer incompetence ran rampant. Around him, individual politicians laid the foundations for the political and economic chaos of today. Stewart emerged battered but with a profound affection for his constituency of Penrith and the Border, and a deep direct insight into the era of populism and global conflict.
Uncompromising, candid and darkly humorous, Politics On the Edge is his story of the challenges, absurdities and realities of political life and a remarkable portrait of our age.
'An instant classic' MARINA HYDE
'At last a politician who can write' SEBASTIAN FAULKS
'Candid, angry, funny, and self-revelatory' JONATHAN DIMBLEBY
'Exceptional' RAFAEL BEHR
The Times pick for *The Biggest Books of the Autumn*
Over the course of a decade from 2010, Rory Stewart went from being a political outsider to standing for prime minister - before being sacked from a Conservative Party that he had come to barely recognise.
Tackling ministerial briefs on flood response and prison violence, engaging with conflict and poverty abroad as a foreign minister, and Brexit as a Cabinet minister, Stewart learned first-hand how profoundly hollow our democracy and government had become.
Cronyism, ignorance and sheer incompetence ran rampant. Around him, individual politicians laid the foundations for the political and economic chaos of today. Stewart emerged battered but with a profound affection for his constituency of Penrith and the Border, and a deep direct insight into the era of populism and global conflict.
Uncompromising, candid and darkly humorous, Politics On the Edge is his story of the challenges, absurdities and realities of political life and a remarkable portrait of our age.
434 pages, Kindle Edition
First published September 14, 2023
About the author
Rory Stewart
29 books490 followersRory Stewart was born in Hong Kong and grew up in Malaysia. He served briefly as an officer in the British Army (the Black Watch), studied history and philosophy at Balliol College, Oxford and then joined the British Diplomatic Service. He worked in the British Embassy in Indonesia and then, in the wake of the Kosovo campaign, as the British Representative in Montenegro. In 2000 he took two years off and began walking from Turkey to Bangladesh. He covered 6000 miles on foot alone across Afghanistan, Pakistan, India and Nepal -- a journey described in The Places in Between.
In 2003, he became the coalition Deputy Governor of Maysan and Dhi Qar -- two provinces in the Marsh Arab region of Southern Iraq. He has written for a range of publications including the New York Times Magazine, the London Review of Books, the Sunday Times, the Guardian, the Financial Times and Granta. In 2004, he was awarded the Order of the British Empire and became a Fellow of the Carr Centre at Harvard University. In 2006 he moved to Kabul, where he established the Turquoise Mountain Foundation.
In 2010 he was elected as a Conservative member of the British Parliament. In 2014 was elected chair of the Defence Select Committee. He served under David Cameron as Minister for the Environment from 2015 to 2016. He served as a minister throughout Theresa May’s government as Minister of State for International Development, Minister of State for Africa and Minister of State for Prisons. He ultimately joined the Cabinet and National Security Council as Secretary of State for International Development. After May announced she would be stepping down, Stewart stood as a candidate to be Leader of the Conservative Party and Prime Minister of the United Kingdom in the 2019 leadership contest. His campaign was defined by his unorthodox use of social media and opposition to a no-deal Brexit. He stated at the beginning of his campaign that he would not serve under Boris Johnson and when Johnson became prime minister, in July 2019, Stewart resigned from the cabinet.
On 3 October 2019 Stewart announced he had resigned from the Conservative Party and that he would stand down as an MP at the next general election. He initially put himself up to be an independent candidate in the 2021 London mayoral election but withdrew on 6 May 2020 on the grounds of the election being postponed due to COVID-19, saying he could not maintain the campaign so long against the big budgets of the Labour and Conservative campaigns. In September 2020 he became a fellow at Yale University, teaching politics and international relations.
In 2003, he became the coalition Deputy Governor of Maysan and Dhi Qar -- two provinces in the Marsh Arab region of Southern Iraq. He has written for a range of publications including the New York Times Magazine, the London Review of Books, the Sunday Times, the Guardian, the Financial Times and Granta. In 2004, he was awarded the Order of the British Empire and became a Fellow of the Carr Centre at Harvard University. In 2006 he moved to Kabul, where he established the Turquoise Mountain Foundation.
In 2010 he was elected as a Conservative member of the British Parliament. In 2014 was elected chair of the Defence Select Committee. He served under David Cameron as Minister for the Environment from 2015 to 2016. He served as a minister throughout Theresa May’s government as Minister of State for International Development, Minister of State for Africa and Minister of State for Prisons. He ultimately joined the Cabinet and National Security Council as Secretary of State for International Development. After May announced she would be stepping down, Stewart stood as a candidate to be Leader of the Conservative Party and Prime Minister of the United Kingdom in the 2019 leadership contest. His campaign was defined by his unorthodox use of social media and opposition to a no-deal Brexit. He stated at the beginning of his campaign that he would not serve under Boris Johnson and when Johnson became prime minister, in July 2019, Stewart resigned from the cabinet.
On 3 October 2019 Stewart announced he had resigned from the Conservative Party and that he would stand down as an MP at the next general election. He initially put himself up to be an independent candidate in the 2021 London mayoral election but withdrew on 6 May 2020 on the grounds of the election being postponed due to COVID-19, saying he could not maintain the campaign so long against the big budgets of the Labour and Conservative campaigns. In September 2020 he became a fellow at Yale University, teaching politics and international relations.
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April 29, 2024
I’m not usually one who enjoys spending their time reading political memoirs (for the same reasons that I’m not usually one who enjoys spending their time in the company of wankers). However, I’ve made an exception — just this once — for my ramble-loving boi Rory: The oddball messiah of the centrist tribe (as he was supremely described by The Times in its review of this book).
It’s hard to talk about a book like this without talking too tiresomely about your own politics (which must inevitably come under scrutiny if you’re to write a full review), so I’ll instead simply say that I think Rory has given us a very good book: Politics on the Edge is sharply and poetically written. In fact, it is sometimes a smidge overwritten. But, despite this quibble, I nonetheless found myself drawing a stylistic comparison between Rory and George Orwell. Orwell was also an Old-Etonian-Old-Oxonian child of colonialism who went on to have a colourful self-examined life preoccupied with thoughts weighed down in the mires of worldly geopolitical philosophies. This (admittedly grandiloquent) comparison probably only occurred to me because I’ve lately been on something of an Orwell binge and, yes, linking Rory to one of the 20th-century’s Great Writers is undoubtedly an overreach; regardless, I found Politics on the Edge achieves some of the same suspenseful intensity of Homage to Catalonia as well as the searing anti-establishmentarian ire of The Road to Wigan Pier — odd, given that it was written by a centre-right conservative rather than a democratic socialist.
I thought the final chapter, Quaestor, a highlight. This rather depressing closeout described how it must have felt for Rory to sit there, trying his best to say something vaguely nuanced in the face of Boris Johnson’s Teflon bravado during the final TV debate of the 2019 Conservative Party leadership race, a race contested by a collection of men who had evidently opted for a lowest-common-denominator approach (Rory excluded). Written like an Anthony Horowitz thriller, Quaestor makes for infuriating reading. I recalled watching the debate live and how it had made me feel freshly aghast at the sorry state of our politicians — an achievement. When it finished, I felt betrayed by the superficial way it had been formatted and produced by the BBC. It was horseshit.
It’s hard to talk about a book like this without talking too tiresomely about your own politics (which must inevitably come under scrutiny if you’re to write a full review), so I’ll instead simply say that I think Rory has given us a very good book: Politics on the Edge is sharply and poetically written. In fact, it is sometimes a smidge overwritten. But, despite this quibble, I nonetheless found myself drawing a stylistic comparison between Rory and George Orwell. Orwell was also an Old-Etonian-Old-Oxonian child of colonialism who went on to have a colourful self-examined life preoccupied with thoughts weighed down in the mires of worldly geopolitical philosophies. This (admittedly grandiloquent) comparison probably only occurred to me because I’ve lately been on something of an Orwell binge and, yes, linking Rory to one of the 20th-century’s Great Writers is undoubtedly an overreach; regardless, I found Politics on the Edge achieves some of the same suspenseful intensity of Homage to Catalonia as well as the searing anti-establishmentarian ire of The Road to Wigan Pier — odd, given that it was written by a centre-right conservative rather than a democratic socialist.
I thought the final chapter, Quaestor, a highlight. This rather depressing closeout described how it must have felt for Rory to sit there, trying his best to say something vaguely nuanced in the face of Boris Johnson’s Teflon bravado during the final TV debate of the 2019 Conservative Party leadership race, a race contested by a collection of men who had evidently opted for a lowest-common-denominator approach (Rory excluded). Written like an Anthony Horowitz thriller, Quaestor makes for infuriating reading. I recalled watching the debate live and how it had made me feel freshly aghast at the sorry state of our politicians — an achievement. When it finished, I felt betrayed by the superficial way it had been formatted and produced by the BBC. It was horseshit.
March 25, 2024
I suppose Rory Steward first clearly appeared on my radar when he stood as one of many candidates for Tory leadership (and therefore Prime Minister) following Theresa May’s resignation in 2019. I recall it being claimed that he’d been a ‘spook’, working for the British Intelligence Service, MI6, for several years after completing his degree at Oxford. It made him sound interesting and whenever I’d heard him talk he did seem to have some engaging things to say. He definitely came across as somebody a little different from the normal boring MP’s that turn up on British television, churning out their party’s policy by rote.
The spy element to his past is unverified, what is known is that he’d spent time as a diplomat, a charity worker and a Harvard professor before becoming a Member of Parliament. This book largely covers the period immediately before his election and up to the time he left Parliament, not long after his abortive leadership campaign. Rory talks us through what he considers to be his major successes (which might just be the least interesting element of this memoir), explains why he chose to become and MP and also what his constituency duties comprised. All this is interesting enough, but it’s hardly what has made this book such a hot topic since it’s release. What people (myself included) are interested in is what it was like to have David Cameron, Liz Truss, Theresa May, and Boris Johnson as a boss?
Stewart doesn’t pull any punches. He lets rip at each of them, with the exception of May, whom he admired. He has nothing good to say about Cameron, whom he found to be disinterested in him and his ideas, a man who populated his office exclusively with ex-classmates from Eton. Of Liz Truss, he says that she valued announcement and polling over implementation and delivery. In fact, he paints a picture of someone who is totally unbearable. But it’s Boris that comes in for most disparagement, described as a feckless blowhard and, above all, a compulsive liar. Others that face harsh criticism include ex-Cabinet ministers, Michael Gove and Gavin Williamson. But in truth there’s very little positive language aimed at any of his fellow MP’s here. Other than May, the only close allegiances he mentions are those with his one-time boss, David Gauke and veteran Conservative Ken Clarke.
The parliamentary machine, he claims, doesn’t work. Ministers are often appointed without the requisite knowledge or background to fulfil their briefs and usually only for a short period of time - often no more than a year. They are then shuffled up, down or sideways, making room for another unqualified appointee to occupy their barely warmed chair. Meanwhile, senior civil servants, who can see that yet another change of direction is in the wind, try their darndest to either explain that the latest idea is ‘not possible’ or frustrate it in other ways, until their new minister is also moved aside.
Interesting though all this is, it does paint a truly horrible picture of our government in action. Moreover, many unnamed MP’s flit in and out of the frame, each seeming to fit one or other of the following stereotypes: an eccentric, an entitled snob, or a weirdo. Is it really this bad? Are the people who run our country really so self-serving, so self-aggrandising? Is Britain’s government system really so flawed and so filled with inappropriate members? I wasn’t always so cynical, but these days, I fear there is only one answer to all of the above.
The spy element to his past is unverified, what is known is that he’d spent time as a diplomat, a charity worker and a Harvard professor before becoming a Member of Parliament. This book largely covers the period immediately before his election and up to the time he left Parliament, not long after his abortive leadership campaign. Rory talks us through what he considers to be his major successes (which might just be the least interesting element of this memoir), explains why he chose to become and MP and also what his constituency duties comprised. All this is interesting enough, but it’s hardly what has made this book such a hot topic since it’s release. What people (myself included) are interested in is what it was like to have David Cameron, Liz Truss, Theresa May, and Boris Johnson as a boss?
Stewart doesn’t pull any punches. He lets rip at each of them, with the exception of May, whom he admired. He has nothing good to say about Cameron, whom he found to be disinterested in him and his ideas, a man who populated his office exclusively with ex-classmates from Eton. Of Liz Truss, he says that she valued announcement and polling over implementation and delivery. In fact, he paints a picture of someone who is totally unbearable. But it’s Boris that comes in for most disparagement, described as a feckless blowhard and, above all, a compulsive liar. Others that face harsh criticism include ex-Cabinet ministers, Michael Gove and Gavin Williamson. But in truth there’s very little positive language aimed at any of his fellow MP’s here. Other than May, the only close allegiances he mentions are those with his one-time boss, David Gauke and veteran Conservative Ken Clarke.
The parliamentary machine, he claims, doesn’t work. Ministers are often appointed without the requisite knowledge or background to fulfil their briefs and usually only for a short period of time - often no more than a year. They are then shuffled up, down or sideways, making room for another unqualified appointee to occupy their barely warmed chair. Meanwhile, senior civil servants, who can see that yet another change of direction is in the wind, try their darndest to either explain that the latest idea is ‘not possible’ or frustrate it in other ways, until their new minister is also moved aside.
Interesting though all this is, it does paint a truly horrible picture of our government in action. Moreover, many unnamed MP’s flit in and out of the frame, each seeming to fit one or other of the following stereotypes: an eccentric, an entitled snob, or a weirdo. Is it really this bad? Are the people who run our country really so self-serving, so self-aggrandising? Is Britain’s government system really so flawed and so filled with inappropriate members? I wasn’t always so cynical, but these days, I fear there is only one answer to all of the above.
September 19, 2023
I like Rory but oh my god the ego here - a good half of this book presents him basically as King Arthur fighting his way through a Kafka novel. Still, the descriptions of the ancient, labyrinthine British state are great, as are those of the people in politics surrounding him (love the Kerry/Gore roman statues line particularly)
September 10, 2023
This is a slightly unusual political memoir, in that the author is neither trying to show off (or polish) their record (fairly limited in Stewart���s case, as he was bounced between departments without much time to make an impact) nor preparing for a comeback. There are no major revelations, and if you listen to The Rest is Politics you’ll probably have heard most of the anecdotes already. But it is an entertaining and, at times, depressing book about life as a frustrated backbencher and junior minister trying and (mostly) failing to make a big difference, whilst watching charlatans and less principled colleagues move ahead.
Another unusual aspect is that Stewart often declines to mention names, thus suggesting a veneer of discretion, but gives you enough hints that anyone with access to a search engine or Wikipedia could probably work out who he is referring to. This faux anonymity is a bit annoying, as it doesn’t seem to achieve anything, and anyone who Stewart despises gets named repeatedly (primarily Boris Johnson).
The final chapters go deep into frustrations - with Brexit, the leadership contest, and finally being thrown out of the party and effectively out of Parliament (UK politicians generally can’t win as independents, so being kicked out of a party means you lose your seat at the next election in nearly all cases). I would have liked to have heard more about the attempts to stop a no deal Brexit after the leadership election, and perhaps his mayoral campaign, and given that Stewart cut half the prepared material, there may be a chance for a second volume. No doubt it would sell well given the number of people who listen to TRIP, where the book is currently plugged at every opportunity.
Overall, this is worth reading given how different it is to most memoirs, but it is unfortunately, and understandably, less interesting than those whose political careers went a bit further.
(In case anyone is wondering how I’m reviewing this before the publication date, I went to a Q&A with Stewart and the ticket price included a copy of the book. As far as I’m aware it’s the same as what will go on general sale.)
Another unusual aspect is that Stewart often declines to mention names, thus suggesting a veneer of discretion, but gives you enough hints that anyone with access to a search engine or Wikipedia could probably work out who he is referring to. This faux anonymity is a bit annoying, as it doesn’t seem to achieve anything, and anyone who Stewart despises gets named repeatedly (primarily Boris Johnson).
The final chapters go deep into frustrations - with Brexit, the leadership contest, and finally being thrown out of the party and effectively out of Parliament (UK politicians generally can’t win as independents, so being kicked out of a party means you lose your seat at the next election in nearly all cases). I would have liked to have heard more about the attempts to stop a no deal Brexit after the leadership election, and perhaps his mayoral campaign, and given that Stewart cut half the prepared material, there may be a chance for a second volume. No doubt it would sell well given the number of people who listen to TRIP, where the book is currently plugged at every opportunity.
Overall, this is worth reading given how different it is to most memoirs, but it is unfortunately, and understandably, less interesting than those whose political careers went a bit further.
(In case anyone is wondering how I’m reviewing this before the publication date, I went to a Q&A with Stewart and the ticket price included a copy of the book. As far as I’m aware it’s the same as what will go on general sale.)
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February 7, 2024Sobering
Rory Stewart comes across as a Thoroughly Good Bloke, you know, has a work ethic, is doing his best, and actually entered politics with the idea of changing things for the better, whatever that might mean, obviously, opinions will differ there, what's better for t'other people. But fair enough. Let’s grant him that, that he's in it to try to do things better than his predecessors. And you'd think that there's room for some improvement when predecessors, for example in the Justice department, decided that privatising the probation service would be a terrific idea, yeah! We'll give contracts to private sector companies and charities who promise, on their honour, to be innovative! and apply the latest evidence based approaches! And to focus their minds the minister promised to pay them hundreds of millions if they reduced reoffending rates. And fine them if reoffending increased. Incentives. Results. (No actual protocols of minimum service that had to be provided). And what happened? Well, it all went a bit wrong. The companies did not succeed in reducing the reoffending rates. In fact, those rates increased. So those companies owed a lot of money to the government. In order to save money they laid off the staff they had inherited and cut back ever more on their services.
So here's someone who tries to be authentic and honourable, and yet feels that the structures of how government departments are run are so inefficient that every good intention is frustrated (maybe it's a way of curbing the bad intentions?) So what chance do we have of good governance? Add to the inefficiencies the combination of vindictiveness, incompetence, laziness and mendacity that permeates the present shower (I mean, Suella Braverman? Suella de Vil, who claims that homelessness is sometimes a lifestyle choice - yeah, sure, all those people who are bored with living in comfort and not getting assaulted). And then, as if that weren't enough, even in Rory Stewart's time there was a fairly swift turnover of staff at the ministries, barely had one incumbent managed to work their way into the material than they were moved on to the next department. And now? when there have been three prime ministers in the last what? eighteen months? And each of those probably had at least one cabinet reshuffle.
Sobering is not the word. Positively depressing.
Rory Stewart comes across as a Thoroughly Good Bloke, you know, has a work ethic, is doing his best, and actually entered politics with the idea of changing things for the better, whatever that might mean, obviously, opinions will differ there, what's better for t'other people. But fair enough. Let’s grant him that, that he's in it to try to do things better than his predecessors. And you'd think that there's room for some improvement when predecessors, for example in the Justice department, decided that privatising the probation service would be a terrific idea, yeah! We'll give contracts to private sector companies and charities who promise, on their honour, to be innovative! and apply the latest evidence based approaches! And to focus their minds the minister promised to pay them hundreds of millions if they reduced reoffending rates. And fine them if reoffending increased. Incentives. Results. (No actual protocols of minimum service that had to be provided). And what happened? Well, it all went a bit wrong. The companies did not succeed in reducing the reoffending rates. In fact, those rates increased. So those companies owed a lot of money to the government. In order to save money they laid off the staff they had inherited and cut back ever more on their services.
So here's someone who tries to be authentic and honourable, and yet feels that the structures of how government departments are run are so inefficient that every good intention is frustrated (maybe it's a way of curbing the bad intentions?) So what chance do we have of good governance? Add to the inefficiencies the combination of vindictiveness, incompetence, laziness and mendacity that permeates the present shower (I mean, Suella Braverman? Suella de Vil, who claims that homelessness is sometimes a lifestyle choice - yeah, sure, all those people who are bored with living in comfort and not getting assaulted). And then, as if that weren't enough, even in Rory Stewart's time there was a fairly swift turnover of staff at the ministries, barely had one incumbent managed to work their way into the material than they were moved on to the next department. And now? when there have been three prime ministers in the last what? eighteen months? And each of those probably had at least one cabinet reshuffle.
Sobering is not the word. Positively depressing.
October 16, 2023
Insightful, depressing, fascinating and genuinely educational - god do I resent Boris Johnson.
September 29, 2023
This political memoir is sui generis. Even the title betrays the contradictions of the work: Stewart is at once "on the edge" and "within". Rory Stewart has always made a virtue of his vulnerable transparency. He once asked a Financial Times profiler "do you think I should be prime minister?", and, while he is often consciously self-mythologising, he never recites false myth. Where, for example, Boris Johnson slaves to belie his true self, Rory Stewart slaves to announce his (or at least, his own conception of it). This makes the book utterly revealing and at times unsettling, and there are two narratives which both reveal and unsettle within.
The first is the narrative about the British political system. It is genuinely enlightening to be introduced to the various byzantine structures that a politician must navigate through the raw eyes of a naive first-timer: the party machine (whips, wannabe grandees & the PM inclusive), the British press, and the Civil Service. The first impressions are laughable and absurd. After twenty chapters, it becomes hard to laugh. But the overall narrative seems to be that no one is really in charge, and no one is interested in taking charge. No one is concerned about the details, except for all the people too concerned with the details. Yes, Minister prefigured this by forty years, but it is harder to swallow when you realise that it really, really is true. The most comically dark passage is Stewart's determination to cease funding to north-west Syria, for fear that the UK government is inadvertently cashing up members of al-Qaeda. Months of flying Bond-like around the world to find out who truly possesses the authority to cut the program leaves him with no answers. He had been told that the decision had to come, variously, from him, from the secretary of state, from the prime minister, from MI5 or MI6, from the NSC, from Cabinet, from the senior civil servants within his department, from the embassy on the ground, from the foreign secretary, even from the American president. Despite all this, the funding never stops. That is, until months later when Stewart was proved entirely correct: Britain had been sending money that ended up in the hands of al-Qaeda. As soon as bad press was on the horizon, the funding stopped... When Stewart talks of political communication rather than decision making, someone like Baudrillard would find himself surprised precisely never. Discussions about policy have been hollowed out by a party machine obsessed with shaping the narrative, a fourth estate obsessed with misrepresenting it, and a constituency of voters obsessed with ignoring it.
The second, and more visceral if far less historically important, is the narrative about Rory Stewart. Stewart is bitter, but - in contrast to much press reporting - not towards individuals but towards a broken political system, and his own romantic conception of it. In many respects, Stewart's life feels like a constant battle fought by the quixotic against the realistic. The boyhood dream to be Lawrence of Arabia against the middle-aged reality of being just another podcaster. For those who have followed his career, reading Stewart's overly idyllic prose dumps about the undying glory of Westminster is like reading the early pages of a Diana, Princess of Wales biography: the disarming naivety with which Stewart waxes lyrical about his love for parliamentary democracy only makes the inexorable march towards failure and despair all the more painful. Critics will say Stewart is excessively obsessed with his own conception as some sort of Disraeli manqué. I would say this: who isn't concerned about the direction of their own life? Many have read the book as a self-indulgent whinge, just another privileged Old Etonian who feels as if they should be ruling the world. This falls short. The pithy, detached prose of the final chapter reflects a blunt truth we all try and hide from: that life will never be as romantic or interesting or brilliant as we had hoped.
The first is the narrative about the British political system. It is genuinely enlightening to be introduced to the various byzantine structures that a politician must navigate through the raw eyes of a naive first-timer: the party machine (whips, wannabe grandees & the PM inclusive), the British press, and the Civil Service. The first impressions are laughable and absurd. After twenty chapters, it becomes hard to laugh. But the overall narrative seems to be that no one is really in charge, and no one is interested in taking charge. No one is concerned about the details, except for all the people too concerned with the details. Yes, Minister prefigured this by forty years, but it is harder to swallow when you realise that it really, really is true. The most comically dark passage is Stewart's determination to cease funding to north-west Syria, for fear that the UK government is inadvertently cashing up members of al-Qaeda. Months of flying Bond-like around the world to find out who truly possesses the authority to cut the program leaves him with no answers. He had been told that the decision had to come, variously, from him, from the secretary of state, from the prime minister, from MI5 or MI6, from the NSC, from Cabinet, from the senior civil servants within his department, from the embassy on the ground, from the foreign secretary, even from the American president. Despite all this, the funding never stops. That is, until months later when Stewart was proved entirely correct: Britain had been sending money that ended up in the hands of al-Qaeda. As soon as bad press was on the horizon, the funding stopped... When Stewart talks of political communication rather than decision making, someone like Baudrillard would find himself surprised precisely never. Discussions about policy have been hollowed out by a party machine obsessed with shaping the narrative, a fourth estate obsessed with misrepresenting it, and a constituency of voters obsessed with ignoring it.
The second, and more visceral if far less historically important, is the narrative about Rory Stewart. Stewart is bitter, but - in contrast to much press reporting - not towards individuals but towards a broken political system, and his own romantic conception of it. In many respects, Stewart's life feels like a constant battle fought by the quixotic against the realistic. The boyhood dream to be Lawrence of Arabia against the middle-aged reality of being just another podcaster. For those who have followed his career, reading Stewart's overly idyllic prose dumps about the undying glory of Westminster is like reading the early pages of a Diana, Princess of Wales biography: the disarming naivety with which Stewart waxes lyrical about his love for parliamentary democracy only makes the inexorable march towards failure and despair all the more painful. Critics will say Stewart is excessively obsessed with his own conception as some sort of Disraeli manqué. I would say this: who isn't concerned about the direction of their own life? Many have read the book as a self-indulgent whinge, just another privileged Old Etonian who feels as if they should be ruling the world. This falls short. The pithy, detached prose of the final chapter reflects a blunt truth we all try and hide from: that life will never be as romantic or interesting or brilliant as we had hoped.
February 9, 2024
I don’t often read the memoirs of politicians. One thinks of those invariably huge and unbelievably tedious books written by former prime ministers which are little more than extended essays in self-justification. Every ex-PM gets one, but who reads them? Rory Stewart isn’t a former prime minister, though not for want of trying. His book is certainly not short on self-justification but is also reflective, passionate and unusually frank.
Stewart was, in many ways, a Tory politician from central casting: a patriotic Old Etonian who revered the monarchy and the military, and believed in limited government, tradition and slow change. His pro-European views and mild social liberalism, not to mention his intelligence and charm, would once have placed him at the head of his party. That he was eventually expelled from the parliamentary Conservative Party, along with twenty other MPs for voting against a no-deal Brexit, tells you nothing about him, but a great deal about the Conservative Party’s reinvention as a populist party of the right.
Stewart spent nearly ten years in Parliament. What he has to say about it has been said many times before by others, though not usually - with the notable exception of Tony Benn - by former cabinet ministers. He portrays a parliamentary system in which loyalty to the leader is rewarded and independent thought and action punished. A politics dominated by empty slogans and party self-interest. Senior civil servants who stand in the way of change and a highly centralised system in which all power flows downwards from the prime minister. Ministers appointed to departments they have little knowledge of and then quickly reshuffled to new ones before they can learn. As Stewart observes, some of the appointments themselves look to the innocent eye wilfully perverse: doctors appointed to the Department of Justice and lawyers to the Department of Health. A little learning in a minister evidently being regarded as a dangerous thing. Stewart himself served in six different ministerial positions in four departments in less than four years. Before becoming an MP he had extensive experience as a diplomat in the Middle East and Asia, but in the Foreign Office he was made Minister for Africa (despite protesting to the Foreign Secretary, Boris Johnson, that he knew nothing about Africa). After that, having by his own admission never given a thought to the subject of prisons, he was put in charge of all the prisons in England and Wales. Still, Prisons Minister was a role he came to love and have some success at.
Stewart emerges from his own account as a complex, self-divided, and even paradoxical figure. His disillusionment with Parliament started not long after entering its hallowed portals. ‘Parliament’, he writes, ‘increasingly reminded me of a boarding school, stripped by scarlet fever of most of the responsible adults and all the nicer and kinder pupils’. Yet he remained politically ambitious. He was, it seems, simultaneously sceptical of power and desirous of it; appalled by the reality of Parliament, he nonetheless remained spellbound by the idea of Parliament and the political life. He admits that, as a backbencher, he usually towed the party line and didn’t speak out publicly about things he privately disagreed with. He was deeply serious with a strong self-publicising streak. He also combined formidable intellect with a capacity for breathtaking naivety which sometimes landed him in trouble. He once told a tabloid journalist that parts of his rural constituency were ‘pretty primitive’ and some of the old farmers held their trousers up with twine. He genuinely meant no offence and was horrified by the entirely predictable media storm in a teacup which followed (he reveals in the book that he briefly contemplated suicide).
He writes affectionately about his Cumbrian constituents and admiringly of Ken Clarke, David Gauke and Theresa May. Most of the Conservative big hitters he encountered during his parliamentary career, however, are summarily dispatched in elegant yet lethal prose: David Cameron, Liz Truss and, of course, Boris Johnson. But, although it contains a great deal of anger, frustration and sadness, Politics on the Edge is remarkably free of bitterness. Stewart’s critique is essentially of structures and culture. The individual actors enabled by the system are almost incidental and certainly interchangeable. Stewart is writing about a Conservative administration but most of what he has to say about it would also apply to a Labour one. And, although his personal political drama took place in Britain, it has much wider relevance. This is the story of a moderate and rational politician gradually being engulfed by the rising tide of populism, fantasising demagogues, and the polarising tendencies of social media. He also writes well about print and broadcast journalists obsessed with political trivia. All these themes come together in the gripping final chapters which deal with his 2019 leadership bid.
I’m not now, nor have I ever been, a member of the Conservative Party, but I admired Rory Stewart even when he was an MP and, after reading this powerful and thoughtful memoir, I admired him even more.
Stewart was, in many ways, a Tory politician from central casting: a patriotic Old Etonian who revered the monarchy and the military, and believed in limited government, tradition and slow change. His pro-European views and mild social liberalism, not to mention his intelligence and charm, would once have placed him at the head of his party. That he was eventually expelled from the parliamentary Conservative Party, along with twenty other MPs for voting against a no-deal Brexit, tells you nothing about him, but a great deal about the Conservative Party’s reinvention as a populist party of the right.
Stewart spent nearly ten years in Parliament. What he has to say about it has been said many times before by others, though not usually - with the notable exception of Tony Benn - by former cabinet ministers. He portrays a parliamentary system in which loyalty to the leader is rewarded and independent thought and action punished. A politics dominated by empty slogans and party self-interest. Senior civil servants who stand in the way of change and a highly centralised system in which all power flows downwards from the prime minister. Ministers appointed to departments they have little knowledge of and then quickly reshuffled to new ones before they can learn. As Stewart observes, some of the appointments themselves look to the innocent eye wilfully perverse: doctors appointed to the Department of Justice and lawyers to the Department of Health. A little learning in a minister evidently being regarded as a dangerous thing. Stewart himself served in six different ministerial positions in four departments in less than four years. Before becoming an MP he had extensive experience as a diplomat in the Middle East and Asia, but in the Foreign Office he was made Minister for Africa (despite protesting to the Foreign Secretary, Boris Johnson, that he knew nothing about Africa). After that, having by his own admission never given a thought to the subject of prisons, he was put in charge of all the prisons in England and Wales. Still, Prisons Minister was a role he came to love and have some success at.
Stewart emerges from his own account as a complex, self-divided, and even paradoxical figure. His disillusionment with Parliament started not long after entering its hallowed portals. ‘Parliament’, he writes, ‘increasingly reminded me of a boarding school, stripped by scarlet fever of most of the responsible adults and all the nicer and kinder pupils’. Yet he remained politically ambitious. He was, it seems, simultaneously sceptical of power and desirous of it; appalled by the reality of Parliament, he nonetheless remained spellbound by the idea of Parliament and the political life. He admits that, as a backbencher, he usually towed the party line and didn’t speak out publicly about things he privately disagreed with. He was deeply serious with a strong self-publicising streak. He also combined formidable intellect with a capacity for breathtaking naivety which sometimes landed him in trouble. He once told a tabloid journalist that parts of his rural constituency were ‘pretty primitive’ and some of the old farmers held their trousers up with twine. He genuinely meant no offence and was horrified by the entirely predictable media storm in a teacup which followed (he reveals in the book that he briefly contemplated suicide).
He writes affectionately about his Cumbrian constituents and admiringly of Ken Clarke, David Gauke and Theresa May. Most of the Conservative big hitters he encountered during his parliamentary career, however, are summarily dispatched in elegant yet lethal prose: David Cameron, Liz Truss and, of course, Boris Johnson. But, although it contains a great deal of anger, frustration and sadness, Politics on the Edge is remarkably free of bitterness. Stewart’s critique is essentially of structures and culture. The individual actors enabled by the system are almost incidental and certainly interchangeable. Stewart is writing about a Conservative administration but most of what he has to say about it would also apply to a Labour one. And, although his personal political drama took place in Britain, it has much wider relevance. This is the story of a moderate and rational politician gradually being engulfed by the rising tide of populism, fantasising demagogues, and the polarising tendencies of social media. He also writes well about print and broadcast journalists obsessed with political trivia. All these themes come together in the gripping final chapters which deal with his 2019 leadership bid.
I’m not now, nor have I ever been, a member of the Conservative Party, but I admired Rory Stewart even when he was an MP and, after reading this powerful and thoughtful memoir, I admired him even more.
October 20, 2023
Probably the best political memoir I have read in a long time. Reflective, kind, insightful.
Loved the parts when Rory realises the reality of power in modern state and politics and an absolute highlight is this part when he is the most junior minister at the Department for the Environment and Rural Affairs (DEFRA) :
“How do you feel, about the other parts of the job,’ John persisted, ‘now that you have real power? It’s a drug, isn’t it, power? I bet you’re glad now you didn’t give up on being an MP.’
I stood and poked the fire, glanced out of the window and grimaced.
‘I don’t know,’ I said. ‘It doesn’t feel like what I mean by power. I felt far more powerful running a small NGO in Kabul.’
‘But you are changing far more lives now – one stroke of a pen on plastic bags has changed the behaviour of millions.’
‘Maybe. But it doesn’t feel like that. It feels very distant and theoretical. In Kabul, we delivered the first water supply, the first sanitation, the first electricity for people who had never had these things before. Every week, we seemed to be erecting a new building. It was fast. I was on the ground, shaping, managing. Not signing paper in an office. I was confident that I was changing lives.’
‘But that was tiny, Rory. You were only working with a few hundred people. Now you can change the lives of millions.’
‘Only by a tiny amount, if at all.’
“Give it time. I think you will come to feel the addiction of power.’
Angry now, I snapped. ‘You bloody do it, then, if you think it is so satisfying.’”
There is something fascinating about how Rory Stewart was and would be exceptional in almost every complex situation - from governing a province in Iraq, through running an NGO in Afghanistan, to lecturing senior American politicians as a professor at Harvard. But the dull and mass nature of UK parliamentary politics was just something that dumbed down even him - which he actively reflects on.
In a way, it is a great demonstration of the reality of the sad nature of modern (British) politics that it is structurally limited to be more inhibited by careerists and sycophants than by actually interesting and skilled leaders. That the politics is so separated from real life - through the parliamentary groupings and necessity to show loyalty to the whips, or by the generalist and extremely myopic nature of the modern civil service.
That does not mean he is always an excellent administrator or that I would believe he was a great minister - a lot of the initiatives he was pursuing seemed quite random an unstructured. But he cared and wanted to actually do things well, even through he was also changed by the system’s pressure to create own projects that would push one’s career up.
This was really an enriching book about a very fascinating person. What is really shows, as the American title suggests in itself, how unsuitable Rory Stewart is for today’s parliamentary politics in Westminster.
Loved the parts when Rory realises the reality of power in modern state and politics and an absolute highlight is this part when he is the most junior minister at the Department for the Environment and Rural Affairs (DEFRA) :
“How do you feel, about the other parts of the job,’ John persisted, ‘now that you have real power? It’s a drug, isn’t it, power? I bet you’re glad now you didn’t give up on being an MP.’
I stood and poked the fire, glanced out of the window and grimaced.
‘I don’t know,’ I said. ‘It doesn’t feel like what I mean by power. I felt far more powerful running a small NGO in Kabul.’
‘But you are changing far more lives now – one stroke of a pen on plastic bags has changed the behaviour of millions.’
‘Maybe. But it doesn’t feel like that. It feels very distant and theoretical. In Kabul, we delivered the first water supply, the first sanitation, the first electricity for people who had never had these things before. Every week, we seemed to be erecting a new building. It was fast. I was on the ground, shaping, managing. Not signing paper in an office. I was confident that I was changing lives.’
‘But that was tiny, Rory. You were only working with a few hundred people. Now you can change the lives of millions.’
‘Only by a tiny amount, if at all.’
“Give it time. I think you will come to feel the addiction of power.’
Angry now, I snapped. ‘You bloody do it, then, if you think it is so satisfying.’”
There is something fascinating about how Rory Stewart was and would be exceptional in almost every complex situation - from governing a province in Iraq, through running an NGO in Afghanistan, to lecturing senior American politicians as a professor at Harvard. But the dull and mass nature of UK parliamentary politics was just something that dumbed down even him - which he actively reflects on.
In a way, it is a great demonstration of the reality of the sad nature of modern (British) politics that it is structurally limited to be more inhibited by careerists and sycophants than by actually interesting and skilled leaders. That the politics is so separated from real life - through the parliamentary groupings and necessity to show loyalty to the whips, or by the generalist and extremely myopic nature of the modern civil service.
That does not mean he is always an excellent administrator or that I would believe he was a great minister - a lot of the initiatives he was pursuing seemed quite random an unstructured. But he cared and wanted to actually do things well, even through he was also changed by the system’s pressure to create own projects that would push one’s career up.
This was really an enriching book about a very fascinating person. What is really shows, as the American title suggests in itself, how unsuitable Rory Stewart is for today’s parliamentary politics in Westminster.
October 15, 2023
Excellent book but thoroughly demoralising. Hard to see how anything will change. I’ll try the Alastair Campbell one next to see if that cheers…
May 6, 2024
I've been on a journey with Rory and I'm still not sure where I stand with him. I only became aware of his politics after following him on Instagram - he was in charge of my wife's government department and I liked to sarcastically forward his reels to her with helpful comments like "you love the land owning elite, don't you darling?"
This was a particularly enjoyable time in our marriage and Rory Stewart made these sarky messages easy as he is, without doubt, the most pretentious person to have ever walked across Afghanistan (which, just a heads up, he mentions at least once a chapter).
Then, by osmosis, I noticed he talked about centralised political values and openly took the piss out of various unlikable politicians which made me suddenly read and agree with the messages I'd been sarcastically forwarding. Naturally this stage only lasted for a month whereupon I listened to an interview where he stated a rugby match lasts for 90 minutes and decided to hate him again.
Reading his book, I think most people will do a similar see-saw where they go from hating to loving to hating Rory. You have to wade through a whole chapter of his time in Afghan where he's talking about "making a difference" and how he just "naturally picked up Dari", really lighting those hatred beacons...
... Then he becomes Minister for prison reform and tries to pay for the tea and coffee at the graduation ceremonies of prison officers and you find yourself liking him...
...then he fails to get a BREXIT deal because he's got the personality of a dead gold fish and you go back to wanting to throw him out a plane.
My point is, the constant emotional gear change can be quite hard work. On average there's only about two pages between you whispering to yourself "maybe he isn't so bad" and then reading a throwaway comment like "my run around the London park offered me a metaphor for modern Britain" which will force you to put the book down and make a rage cup of tea.
In conclusion, an interesting read where he's quite mean to Liz Truss, which is something we can all get on board with... Not that it helps my f*cked mortgage.
This was a particularly enjoyable time in our marriage and Rory Stewart made these sarky messages easy as he is, without doubt, the most pretentious person to have ever walked across Afghanistan (which, just a heads up, he mentions at least once a chapter).
Then, by osmosis, I noticed he talked about centralised political values and openly took the piss out of various unlikable politicians which made me suddenly read and agree with the messages I'd been sarcastically forwarding. Naturally this stage only lasted for a month whereupon I listened to an interview where he stated a rugby match lasts for 90 minutes and decided to hate him again.
Reading his book, I think most people will do a similar see-saw where they go from hating to loving to hating Rory. You have to wade through a whole chapter of his time in Afghan where he's talking about "making a difference" and how he just "naturally picked up Dari", really lighting those hatred beacons...
... Then he becomes Minister for prison reform and tries to pay for the tea and coffee at the graduation ceremonies of prison officers and you find yourself liking him...
...then he fails to get a BREXIT deal because he's got the personality of a dead gold fish and you go back to wanting to throw him out a plane.
My point is, the constant emotional gear change can be quite hard work. On average there's only about two pages between you whispering to yourself "maybe he isn't so bad" and then reading a throwaway comment like "my run around the London park offered me a metaphor for modern Britain" which will force you to put the book down and make a rage cup of tea.
In conclusion, an interesting read where he's quite mean to Liz Truss, which is something we can all get on board with... Not that it helps my f*cked mortgage.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
March 26, 2024
The one abiding take-away from this book is that the entire political shit show is trapped in a pit of its own making and still only knows how to dig deeper.
I didn't have much idea of who Rory was before I picked this book up (I'm far more interested in 20th century politics than today's media circus) so although I was half-aware of some of the dafter gaffs he'd been involved with, I couldn't have named him in a pub quiz.
This turned out to be the best political book I've read in ages. I've alternated between laughing out loud and slack-jawed disbelief. The sheer unalloyed hubris and blind incompetence at all levels of government is staggering. It would be hilarious if it wasn't so scary.
I didn't have much idea of who Rory was before I picked this book up (I'm far more interested in 20th century politics than today's media circus) so although I was half-aware of some of the dafter gaffs he'd been involved with, I couldn't have named him in a pub quiz.
This turned out to be the best political book I've read in ages. I've alternated between laughing out loud and slack-jawed disbelief. The sheer unalloyed hubris and blind incompetence at all levels of government is staggering. It would be hilarious if it wasn't so scary.
December 5, 2023
4.5 stars. This is a really good memoir. Rory’s writing style is undeniably very captivating - mixing funny anecdotes with real political insight and knowledge. The overall theme of this book is really depressing though, showing just how impossible the Westminster system is to work with while remaining a moral person. It managed to caricature loads of high profile politicians well, while highlighting their shameless power ambitions.
Really good read if you’re into British politics, and makes you like Rory Stewart even more than you already may. Shame he left public service because he was one of the best thing we never got.
Really good read if you’re into British politics, and makes you like Rory Stewart even more than you already may. Shame he left public service because he was one of the best thing we never got.
July 15, 2024
Well written. Ultimately, the idiots and liars who've formed our government for 14 years until only very recently, are indeed idiots and liars.
October 13, 2023
Rory Stewart is, like most of us, a political outsider. The majority of his career was spent working in international development projects throughout the Middle East. Only later in life did he turn his hand at politics. His 'memoir from within' covers his 10 years serving as an MP and brings you shockingly close to the UK political system.
In his time as an MP and Minister, Stewart travels across the world serving the UK government. His interactions shine light upon the lies, incompetence and inefficiencies within politics. Somehow, he doesn't lose hope and continues to deliver pragmatic solutions on international aid, prisons and Brexit.
Stewart brings the politicians and events that we only see through the lens of the media to life. His first hand accounts have challenged and reinvigorated my political views.
In his time as an MP and Minister, Stewart travels across the world serving the UK government. His interactions shine light upon the lies, incompetence and inefficiencies within politics. Somehow, he doesn't lose hope and continues to deliver pragmatic solutions on international aid, prisons and Brexit.
Stewart brings the politicians and events that we only see through the lens of the media to life. His first hand accounts have challenged and reinvigorated my political views.
October 4, 2023
Audible. A brilliant political autobiography, full of humour and very self aware but also real anger at the total failure of our political systems. Read by Rory, he has an effective and distinctive style and I liked his impressions of some of the main characters.
December 15, 2023
While there are many areas where I don't align politically with Rory Stewart, (like the whole being a Tory thing), there are also several things I agree with him on. During the Brexit chaos I greatly admired him for his integrity and for managing to be indefatigably idealistic without being unrealistic. I still think he was the best choice for PM after Theresa May resigned and that the UK wouldn't be in half the muck it's currently in if he'd been selected rather than Boris Johnson.
In this memoir we follow Rory Stewart on his journey into politics and out again, and my main takeaways are these:
- The TV show Yes, Minister might as well have been a documentary, it's so spot on about the way things work. It's quite terrifying.
- I was already annoyed that David Cameron, after plunging us into the Brexit mess and then disappearing to earn a truckload of money as a mediocre lobbyist for a few years, was rewarded with a peerage and a political position of power. After reading about his leadership style, I am now horrified and worried in addition to being annoyed.
- Liz Truss is exactly as ditzy and chaotic as she appeared, and we should all be glad she didn't have more time to do damage.
- Rory Stewart really really despises Boris Johnson (don't blame him), although he is also fascinated by him (why? why is everybody so intrigued by BoJo? I fear that his "Aw, shucks, if I did wrong I'm really sorry" routine at the Covid Inquiries means that he too is planning a return to politics when Richie Rich Sunak is inevitability toppled by the Rwanda debacle. I know that history has a tendency to repeat itself, but it shouldn't happen quickly enough to bring us the 2024 comeback of both Trump and Boris. But I digress.)
- The system for getting elected to Parliament is messed up. The system for getting anything done in Parliament is even more messed up.
- Can we please have a complete reboot of the UK? Of the World? (My thought, not Rory's, although I think he might be cautiously in favour. He's quite the radical for a conservative. As long as he got to keep the monarchy and the House of Lord (albeit with some reform), I think he'd be game.)
In this memoir we follow Rory Stewart on his journey into politics and out again, and my main takeaways are these:
- The TV show Yes, Minister might as well have been a documentary, it's so spot on about the way things work. It's quite terrifying.
- I was already annoyed that David Cameron, after plunging us into the Brexit mess and then disappearing to earn a truckload of money as a mediocre lobbyist for a few years, was rewarded with a peerage and a political position of power. After reading about his leadership style, I am now horrified and worried in addition to being annoyed.
- Liz Truss is exactly as ditzy and chaotic as she appeared, and we should all be glad she didn't have more time to do damage.
- Rory Stewart really really despises Boris Johnson (don't blame him), although he is also fascinated by him (why? why is everybody so intrigued by BoJo? I fear that his "Aw, shucks, if I did wrong I'm really sorry" routine at the Covid Inquiries means that he too is planning a return to politics when Richie Rich Sunak is inevitability toppled by the Rwanda debacle. I know that history has a tendency to repeat itself, but it shouldn't happen quickly enough to bring us the 2024 comeback of both Trump and Boris. But I digress.)
- The system for getting elected to Parliament is messed up. The system for getting anything done in Parliament is even more messed up.
- Can we please have a complete reboot of the UK? Of the World? (My thought, not Rory's, although I think he might be cautiously in favour. He's quite the radical for a conservative. As long as he got to keep the monarchy and the House of Lord (albeit with some reform), I think he'd be game.)
October 1, 2023
Just like the other Old Etonian memoir I read this year (Spare), I went from quite liking the author to really disliking him after reading his book. I’m a regular listener to The Rest Is Politics podcast so bought this book looking forward to a bit of insight into his experiences and some political gossip. It’s actually a very similar book to Spare in many ways. I had the audiobook of this. Stewart’s tone throughout was (in my view) egotistical, entirely lacking in self-awareness, stroppy and in so many areas, oozing with his own prejudices and unconscious biases. The accents he puts on to mimic colleagues showed his snobbery in spades. His default setting as a minister seemed to be ‘bring in a military leader to start a war room and a task force’ as a solution to everything. He didn’t seem to be able to listen, change his mind, or care about bringing people with him. He strung out a fairly limited political career into multiple chapters. It also sounds like he got incredibly caught up in and slightly addicted to the Twitter enthusiasm around his leadership campaign. All in all it was an absolute slog to finish but I definitely feel it gives a true and real sense of the man and his political priorities
September 23, 2023
Great read, honest and self critical. Would almost say I enjoyed it if it wasn't for the absolute despair by the end.
February 8, 2024
This is a very thoughtful memoir of an individual whose passion and resilience was repeatedly tested beyond what he could have imagined by the political establishment he was inspired by prior to entering a career in politics. It’s a testament to how incredibly important it is to have a loving, supportive and honest network around you.
November 1, 2023
Fascinating indeed. Ever so slightly “my version of Eton exceptionalism is better than yours” ?
January 26, 2024
Excellent book. Really well written, easy to read and gave some great insights into how our government works and his views of politicians like Cameron and Johnson.
January 26, 2024
Не бях много сигурна, че е добра идея да чета книга, която е толкова популярна, тъй като обикновено се оказва голяма грешка, но този път бях неочаквано и приятно изненадана.
Рори Стюарт е добър писател и озвучител. Определено слушането е начинът да прочетеш тази книга. Преди тази книга си нямах и понятие кой е той и да бъда искрена макар физиономията му да ми е позната, все още не мога да се сетя от къде ми е познат и въобще ако е бил толкова активен в политическия живот на страната, защо си нямах и понятие за него, при все, че гледам редовно британските новини? Това вероятно ще си остане мистерия.
Няма спор, че си е малко сноб авторът, но умее да осмива и себе си, което до някъде тушира усещането, че е просто поредният привилегирован политик, който се оплаква от управлението на страната.
Беше наистина интересен мемоар за политическия живот на авторът и откровена атака срещу Борис Джонсън, което с топли чувства приех. И аз не мога да понасям жълтото пате, ама британците си го харесват...
Много от проблемите, които той споменава, че се сблъсква в политическия живот на UK са неща, които дори само гледайки и четейки новините може да ги хванеш. Та, е готино да видиш политик да ги вербализира и откровено да изразява възмущението и фрустрацията си от тях.
Та, стана ми симпатичен Рорито и книгата е чудесна за всеки, който иска да види каква е политическата реалност, поне малка част от нея, в UK. Тук нещата също не са цветя и рози като навсякъде другаде, де. Просто проблемите им още не са стигнали дъното, ама вървят натам. :)
Рори Стюарт е добър писател и озвучител. Определено слушането е начинът да прочетеш тази книга. Преди тази книга си нямах и понятие кой е той и да бъда искрена макар физиономията му да ми е позната, все още не мога да се сетя от къде ми е познат и въобще ако е бил толкова активен в политическия живот на страната, защо си нямах и понятие за него, при все, че гледам редовно британските новини? Това вероятно ще си остане мистерия.
Няма спор, че си е малко сноб авторът, но умее да осмива и себе си, което до някъде тушира усещането, че е просто поредният привилегирован политик, който се оплаква от управлението на страната.
Беше наистина интересен мемоар за политическия живот на авторът и откровена атака срещу Борис Джонсън, което с топли чувства приех. И аз не мога да понасям жълтото пате, ама британците си го харесват...
Много от проблемите, които той споменава, че се сблъсква в политическия живот на UK са неща, които дори само гледайки и четейки новините може да ги хванеш. Та, е готино да видиш политик да ги вербализира и откровено да изразява възмущението и фрустрацията си от тях.
Та, стана ми симпатичен Рорито и книгата е чудесна за всеки, който иска да види каква е политическата реалност, поне малка част от нея, в UK. Тук нещата също не са цветя и рози като навсякъде другаде, де. Просто проблемите им още не са стигнали дъното, ама вървят натам. :)
July 15, 2024
This is such an effective takedown of all the flaws of UK politics not because it's dramatic or vengeful (although his scathing descriptions of Liz Truss, BoJo, and the far right of the Conservative party are very entertaining), but simply because it offers a straightforward explanation of how things actually work from the point of view of someone who was on the frontlines but who no longer has pressure on him to warp his points of view for political gain/appeal. It exposes the inexperience of most politicians who are elevated to various ministerial positions in which they have no experience, the way in which decisions are made and the associated pressures to be whipped into compliance, and the challenges of balancing political action at the local constituent level vs offering up what appeals to a mass audience in the social media age.
April 21, 2024
This was a very interesting and also quite worrying account of what went on in Westminster during the coalition (Conservative-LibDem) and then the Conservative government up to the premiership of Boris Johnson, while Rory Stewart was a Member of Parliament.
I had not really known much about Rory Stuart before he campaigned to be leader of the Conservative Party following the resignation of Theresa May, but I immediately took a liking to him. Although I never have (and probably never will) vote Conservative, I could see myself supporting Rory. Instead of him, we got landed with the amoral and mendacious Boris Johnson, followed by the bat-shit crazy Liz Truss. And now have Rishi Sunak – who might have been a reasonable PM in another time, but who now has been landed with a trashed economy and international reputation, and a completely ungovernable Tory Party.
Rory Stuart is a very hard-working and intelligent person, who – before becoming an MP – was in the British army, a diplomat in Indonesia and the Balkans, a successful administrator in Iraq and Afghanistan, an author, and a professor at Harvard University. Despite his many talents, in parliament he was seldom employed in areas in which he had expertise and with each new job, had to learn from scratch what was required – which he seemed to do very assiduously and well. Ministerial and committee roles were doled out to those deemed loyal to the PM and the Party, rather than those MPs who might be suitable for the job. I had always wondered why many of our ministries were run by ministers who didn’t have what you would consider a relevant background. I thought that maybe it was because there were not enough MPs with those particular skills. Rory Stewart says it was a deliberate policy, so the minister would not upset either his party nor the civil service by being too effective. Not the way an efficient government should be run, to my mind.
He is a very keen walker, using it as a way to really get to know the people and areas that he represents. He walked 6,000 miles across Asia and Afghanistan, and (closer to home) all over the Penrith and Borders constituency for which he was the Member of Parliament from 2010 to 2019. His descriptions of the landscape, the people and the culture of his constituency make it sound like a wonderful (if cold and deprived) place and community in which to live. He clearly loved the area, and was liked and respected by his constituents, championing their needs at a local and national level.
His descriptions of working under some ministers are really alarming (especially Boris and Liz Truss), though there were ministers and politicians such as Kenneth Clarke and David Gauke whom he really admired.
I really enjoyed this book, and can’t help but think that if we had more honest, hard-working, committed politicians such as Rory Stewart, we would not be in the dire straits we are.
Highly recommended to anyone with an interest in politics.
I had not really known much about Rory Stuart before he campaigned to be leader of the Conservative Party following the resignation of Theresa May, but I immediately took a liking to him. Although I never have (and probably never will) vote Conservative, I could see myself supporting Rory. Instead of him, we got landed with the amoral and mendacious Boris Johnson, followed by the bat-shit crazy Liz Truss. And now have Rishi Sunak – who might have been a reasonable PM in another time, but who now has been landed with a trashed economy and international reputation, and a completely ungovernable Tory Party.
Rory Stuart is a very hard-working and intelligent person, who – before becoming an MP – was in the British army, a diplomat in Indonesia and the Balkans, a successful administrator in Iraq and Afghanistan, an author, and a professor at Harvard University. Despite his many talents, in parliament he was seldom employed in areas in which he had expertise and with each new job, had to learn from scratch what was required – which he seemed to do very assiduously and well. Ministerial and committee roles were doled out to those deemed loyal to the PM and the Party, rather than those MPs who might be suitable for the job. I had always wondered why many of our ministries were run by ministers who didn’t have what you would consider a relevant background. I thought that maybe it was because there were not enough MPs with those particular skills. Rory Stewart says it was a deliberate policy, so the minister would not upset either his party nor the civil service by being too effective. Not the way an efficient government should be run, to my mind.
He is a very keen walker, using it as a way to really get to know the people and areas that he represents. He walked 6,000 miles across Asia and Afghanistan, and (closer to home) all over the Penrith and Borders constituency for which he was the Member of Parliament from 2010 to 2019. His descriptions of the landscape, the people and the culture of his constituency make it sound like a wonderful (if cold and deprived) place and community in which to live. He clearly loved the area, and was liked and respected by his constituents, championing their needs at a local and national level.
His descriptions of working under some ministers are really alarming (especially Boris and Liz Truss), though there were ministers and politicians such as Kenneth Clarke and David Gauke whom he really admired.
I really enjoyed this book, and can’t help but think that if we had more honest, hard-working, committed politicians such as Rory Stewart, we would not be in the dire straits we are.
Highly recommended to anyone with an interest in politics.
June 29, 2024
This book made me depressed about the state of British politics and civil service. It made me sad about the vapidness of the British public and media. Ultimately it is a fantastic tell all book by a browbeaten and exhausted politician ultimately removed from office for being principled. It is expertly crafted and engaging and I believe it should be taught in schools. Stewart’s justifiable hatred of Boris Johnson is so relatable and palpable and in my opinion he has now lived to be proved right by most of his assertions.
Finally this book definitely makes me think that Britain’s future is as bleak as the landscape of his constituency. We are as they say screwed.
Finally this book definitely makes me think that Britain’s future is as bleak as the landscape of his constituency. We are as they say screwed.
September 16, 2023
The dysfunction within large institutions is a common occurrence, and each institution is dysfunctional in its own way. However, their ability to reflect on this dysfunction and implement changes is a measure of that institution. Stewart, ruthlessly and systematically, demonstrates the dysfunction within the UK Government. He shows that despite its recognition of the need for change, the government faces challenges in implementing these changes,Two challenges stand out: the profound influence of platforms like Twitter and Facebook that lead audited individuals to extreme behaviours, and the civil service's consistent reluctance to embrace change.
It seems that Stewart's underlying discontent stems from his deep-seated faith in the system, a conviction that it possesses a grandeur and poetry perhaps beyond its reality.
Well worth a read.
It seems that Stewart's underlying discontent stems from his deep-seated faith in the system, a conviction that it possesses a grandeur and poetry perhaps beyond its reality.
Well worth a read.
February 27, 2024
From the Private Eye:
June 8, 2024
This is one of the best books I've ever read and the first one I intend fully to reread.
Read
February 16, 2024Listened to this as an audiobook for when I’m in the lab! A pretty damning review of the state of today’s politics. (Slightly embarrassing confession: I got v emotional when listening to Rory thank his wife in the acknowledgments just now lol)
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