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63 About this deal
Long passages in this chapter advocate for all the merits of the agreement – its sensitivity to Ireland, its best-of-both-worlds problem-solving. I find it convincing now as I found it convincing then. But her abject failure to interrogate, deeply, why Remainers and Leavers alike didn’t see promise in her arrangement is telling. She thinks they crashed her deal just “because they could” without considering that anyone might have good reason to. 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. Yet, in 2009, Rory found himself considering an unlikely move. David Cameron had reopened the Conservative candidates’ list to ‘anybody who wants to apply’. He decided to stand.
We are experiencing delays with deliveries to many countries, but in most cases local services have now resumed. For more details, please consult the latest information provided by Royal Mail's International Incident Bulletin. I’ve never usually been a fan of slogging through political memoirs, particularly those from Tories that only held a seat for less than a decade, but after being a longtime listener of his podcast with Labour’s Alistair Campbell I was tempted to give this a go, and I’m glad I did. 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.
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From the former Conservative Cabinet minister and co-presenter of 2022's breakout hit podcast The Rest is Politics , a searing insider's account of ten extraordinary years in Parliament When serving as a minister under Truss he recalls her requesting him to slash the budget of his department by 20 per cent. Stewart expressed natural consternation at such an ask, but Truss reassured him: “I have a mentor who is a very successful businessman who says all businesses can always be cut by 20 per cent.” So, when Stewart rattles off the innumerable social, moral and political failings of some colleagues he – more often than not – seems to have a perfectly legitimate case. Yet Stewart emerges from the carnage a stronger character. He realises that up against the aggressive exaggeration of the European Research Group, his allies on the Tory benches are “like a book club going to a Millwall game”. It doesn’t make him any less intense and he still takes himself far too seriously, but the prisons job and defending what he (and I) saw as a reasonable solution to a 52-48 referendum result ends his “queasiness about confrontational politics”. May goes. Stewart’s wife thinks he should stand for leader.
May’s treatise on the state of modern Britain, The Abuse of Power, is well-intentioned but hard work. In it, she chronicles miserable episodes in the country’s recent history – hopping between the Hillsborough disaster, sex abuse scandals, Brexit and modern slavery. Those who run the country, she contends, too frequently put their personal interests before the greater good. She applies this rather banal logic to parliament: Labour, Speaker of the House John Bercow (whom she clearly loathes) and many on her own team wielded their power to disingenuously thwart her Brexit deal and harm the nation. It also leaves you shaking your head with incredulity & wonderment on the subject of how Mr. Stewart survived the whole hellish process of political life and has come out the other end of the beast in one piece, while remaining a relatively sane, unembittered and balanced individual. One finds further amazement in the man’s stubbornness, tenacity and resiliency. But that was tiny, Rory. You were only working with a few hundred people. Now you can change the lives of millions.’ Rory Stewart interview: ‘I fought an existential fight against Boris Johnson, who is a terrible human being’ ]
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Luke Harding’s Invasion: Russia’s Bloody War and Ukraine’s Fight for Survival, shortlisted for the Orwell prize, is published by Guardian Faber
Politics always seemed to me like some monolithic, Mammon-oriented Rube Goldberg Machine whose main function is to serve itself while using up resources and churning out illusions as well as mostly avoiding any positive outcome based on reality. Stewart’s recent work, I think is an eloquent document of support with regard to this view. And a party that seeks to take down May rather than endorse her apparently ingenious Brexit deal completely confounds those who self-style as cool-headed rationalists. In short, the problem – as diagnosed by May and Stewart – is not in fact anything to do with the institutional “abuse of power” or the systematic eschewal of expertise. No, their problem is that the Conservative party does not specifically reward people like them. From beginning to end the reader is astonished that the author lasted as long as he did in a career field that seems not only not to value the qualities of honesty, integrity, truthfulness, any kind of loyalty or work ethic but essentially finds these qualities abhorrent to its mechanical day to day functioning. In fact, much of The Abuse of Power is a similar exercise in self-styling as duty-bound, honest, fair, conscientious and co-operative. It is hard to leave the book without believing that at least some of this is a fair portrayal (though no one will leave the book with the impression that she is a wordsmith). R ory Stewart’s CV would put most of us to shame. Still only fifty, he’s been a tutor to princes, a serving soldier, a British diplomat (and, some say, an intelligence officer), an acclaimed travel writer, deputy governor of an Iraqi province, a charity founder, a Harvard professor, a Member of Parliament, a cabinet minister and a Tory leadership contender. But it’s only in the last year or two, primarily in his role as co-presenter of one of the country’s most popular podcasts, The Rest is Politics, that he’s become something of a national treasure.
Church Times/Sarum College:
If you're coming to Coles by car, why not take advantage of the 2 hours free parking at Sainsbury's Pioneer Square - just follow the signs for Pioneer Square as you drive into Bicester and park in the multi-storey car park above the supermarket. Come down the travelators, exit Sainsbury's, turn right and follow the pedestrianised walkway to Crown Walk and turn right - and Coles will be right in front of you. You don't need to shop in Sainsbury's to get the free parking! Where to Find Us Not everyone would put him in that category, of course, especially if they happen to be one of the Tory politicians skewered by Stewart in this memoir. Admittedly, one or two of his erstwhile colleagues (David Gauke, now one of the country’s most astute political columnists, being the standout example) emerge from this tale with their reputations intact – or indeed enhanced. But they are the exceptions. But you are changing far more lives now – one stroke of a pen on plastic bags has changed the behaviour of millions.’
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