“Politics on the Edge” by Rory Stewart – flawed genius. Rory Stewart writes with sharp clarity about the failures of the political establishment with selecting MPs and the subtle mind control of the Civil Service over Ministers. He is openly candid and critical about many of colleagues, and his own self-reflection. Whilst I found his insight engaging and how his intellect is able to break down societal problems, he is an outlier that did not succeed.
The first third of this memoir focuses on how he leaves the Civil Service to became an MP and his struggles between his local responsibilities in Penrith and the Border alongside being at Westminster.
He is particularly excoriating on the selection process for MPs as out of date, dysfunctional, and the whip system in the house of commons fostering loyalty to the centre over free thinking. He has little constructive to say about some of his peers – how shallow they are in their voting as required by the leadership with the expectation they will be rewarded with a ministerial position. He goes so far as to imply that George Osborne kept him out of a ministerial position for five years as punishment for one rebel vote.
The underlying grievance is then directed at David Cameron. A prime minister he regards as both devoid of ideology yet highly opinionated in a self-regarding way. Cameron was undoubtedly a pale imitation of Blair and a managerialist, but I suspect most high achieving politicians have to be sociopaths. Rory Stewart is deeply unimpressed in how David Cameron ruan his leadership – a small cabal that isolates him from his own MPs.
Rory Stewart is undeniably honest about his own failings and open about his colleagues. Whilst he omits names in many cases his descriptions are sufficient if you want to know who he is being candid and often critical about.
His promotion to Minister of State is intriguing in how the civil servants regard him as a problem getting in the way of their own beliefs about the foreign policy of international development.
His next position in the Justice department sees him take on the decline in prisons with great impact. This no doubt shows him at his best – examining a broken system, consulting experts to bring together practical solutions that work.
Rory Stewart soon benefits from the unstable mess of the Government under David Cameron and May by becoming a Secretary of State. He sets out his stall with the Brexit referendum as very much centrist in the middle of the two extremes – those wanting a second referendum and those wanting a hard Brexit – even a no deal.
As the country became so divided over Brexit his public stand on supporting a customs deal exposed him to nasty vitriol, not just on social media but within the political establishment. His position, no doubt noble, is flawed. Promoting a customs deal with Europe would have tied the UK in to the EU as a second class country, which would have clashed with those who wanted to leave Europe. His support for Theresa May on a soft Brexit solution shows how much an outlier he was.
What is also clear is his deep dislike of Boris Johnson to the point of refusing to be in government with him but it would have been useful to understand more as to how he came to view him as an “egotistical chancer” with “furtive cunning” eyes.
This memoir concludes with his attempt to become prime minister. He makes the case that his vox pop tours of the country made him favourite. But when it came to gaining support of fellow MPs at the vote he feels they closed ranks against him. There is a sense of everyone else is wrong following Boris Johnson and being prepared to go for a no-deal Brexit. Was he naive not to support no-deal Brexit simply as a bargaining chip?
There is no doubt that Rory Stewart is disillusioned with the UK political system and his colleagues but his inability to play it at its own game was his own downfall. Put together it portrays a political establishment that has both lost it global credibility and lost its way nationally. But Rory failed to persuade them to let him fix it.
