Politics On the Edge: A Memoir From Within

by Rory Stewart

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.

Genres: Politics, Nonfiction, Biography, Memoir, Audiobook, History, Autobiography

436 pages, Kindle Edition

First published September 14, 2023

About the author

Rory 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.

Reviews

[Callum's Column · Rating 4 out of 5]

Rory Stewart provides an insiders account of modern British politics. Stewart recounts his time as governor of an Iraqi province during the Iraq War, head of an NGO in Kabul during the Afghanistan War, ascent into the United Kingdom Parliament as the Conservative Member for Penrith, rise as a government minister, and his political demise following an unsuccessful tilt at the Tory leadership. Stewart illuminates the decadence of British politics, including his distaste for figures like Liz Truss and David Cameron, and utter contempt for Boris Johnson. Stewart's love for his country compelled him to refuse to serve under Johnson—a man who only cares for himself.

This book exhibits the accuracy of "Yes, Minister." For example, as the head of the Department for International Development, Stewart tried to veto British aid being directed to Jihadi-controlled Syrian enclaves. The civic servants told him he did not have the power to veto the funding, but he could approve it. Stewart tried to find out who had power of veto. Following advice of who may have this power, Stewart went to the UK's Syrian embassy-in-exile in Turkey, spoke to US generals and officials in Syria, and the Prime Ministers Office. The funding continued until it was reported that a recipient was filmed at an Al Qaeda event. Only then did an unnamed civil servant halt the funding.

I was in London when Johnson became Prime Minister as part of a study tour to learn from libertarian-conservative economic and political think tanks in Europe. The people working at these institutions were exuberant about Johnson's rise. With a nostalgic view of empire-era free trade, they believed the UK would become a global economic power post-Brexit—deal or no deal. Their hubris was astounding then, and even more so in hindsight. The British economy remains sluggish, and fantasies of global free trade are now in tatters. Britain's future is with Europe, not the "new world." Perhaps Britain will realise this when Trump capriciously slaps some tariffs on them.

Thanks for reading Callum’s Column! Subscribe for free (only your email is required) for new book reviews and political analyses on Australia and the United States: https://callumscolumn.substack.com/

[Jay · Rating 3 out of 5]

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.

[Fin · Rating 3 out of 5]

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)

[Andrew Smith · Rating 4 out of 5]

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.

[Graham Power · Rating 5 out of 5]

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.

[Tess · Rating 5 out of 5]

Insightful, depressing, fascinating and genuinely educational - god do I resent Boris Johnson.

[Paul Waring · Rating 3 out of 5]

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.)

[Finlay · Rating 4 out of 5]

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.

[Karen·]

Sobering

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.

[Jakub Dovcik · Rating 5 out of 5]

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.

[Mervyn Whyte · Rating 4 out of 5]

Boris Johnson is a liar, Michael Gove duplicitous, David Cameron facile and Liz Truss barmy. Not really anything new. But this is still an insightful and well-observed book. It's not quite warts and all - I'm sure there were far more scabs Stewart could've unpicked had he so chosen - but it's probably as close as we're going to get. And what a shabby world politics is. All the egotism and pettiness and dysfunctional characters. Talking of egotism, Stewart is accused throughout the book of being guilty of it. And he is - on occasion - guilty as charged. Despite portraying himself as different from the others, he's still a politician. Egotism seems to be hardwired into most of them. Especially those who hold office. At least Stewart tried - and on many occasions, succeeded - in getting things done. What's so depressing about politics is how much time and energy is spent on backbiting and scheming and jockeying for position. It's depressing once again to read about austerity. Cameron and Osbourne destroyed the social fabric of this country by implementing it. And seemed to do so with such relish.

[Andrew Wesley · Rating 5 out of 5]

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…

[Sam · Rating 3 out of 5]

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.

[David Steele · Rating 5 out of 5]

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.

[Vanya Prodanova · Rating 4 out of 5]

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. :)

[charly (normalreaders)]

it’s gonna be a dnf from me - i love the podcast the rest is politics but this memoir is literally just rory painting himself to be a knight in shining armour and he’s reeeeeeally trying to push the ‘i’m a good tory, it’s everyone else that’s the problem’ narrative which is driving me mildly insane.

my politics degree is quaking atm x

[Sarah Burr · Rating 2 out of 5]

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

[Julian Worker · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book has been lauded as one of the best political memoirs ever written about a life in UK politics.

This memoir covers the period from when Rory Stewart was first elected to the UK Parliament in 2010 as the MP for Penrith and The Border and finishes when he left UK politics in 2019 having recently been sacked from the Conservative Party by their new leader, Boris Johnson. Johnson had defeated Stewart in a recent leadership contest.

This is an entertaining and honest insight into the realities of political life in the UK, which will probably inspire some people to become MPs and put off others. How MPs representing constituencies 300 miles or more from London are meant to see their families, run surgeries for their constituents, AND represent them at Westminster is beyond me.

[Sarah Bates · Rating 4 out of 5]

Fascinating indeed. Ever so slightly “my version of Eton exceptionalism is better than yours” ?

[Daniel Penaliggon · Rating 5 out of 5]

Mostly audiobook….

Rory REALLY doesn’t like boris Johnson. Only time in two podcasts and this book that I can remember where there’s been very little on one side he’s said, in this case the positive. Possible alternative view is that boris has extensive serious shortcomings, and few by the sounds of it, carefully considered well intended political policies.

Re Rory, What a fella. Only more reading will uncover just how insanely biased I am.

Loved the ENTIRE thing.

[Patrickmarsh_ · Rating 4 out of 5]

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.

[Normanreadmoreman · Rating 4 out of 5]

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.

[Sam · Rating 5 out of 5]

Astonishingly insightful, ex-politician and frontrunner to win the Conservative Leadership election in 2019, Rory Stewart recounts his experience throughout his tumultuous time in British politics and paints a bleak image of a political system in disarray.

Now, I must admit. Before 2020 I expressed very little interest in politics of any kind. I vaguely knew the Prime Minister, but I didn't care for it. I understood the Houses of Parliament's significance to the United Kingdom's democracy, but little else mattered. I started to obsess over politics when the pandemic ripped across the globe and Downing Street was broadcasted more than Coronation Street or Hollyoaks. There was something comical, albeit terrifying, about watching the bumbling buffoon Boris Johnson standing up for British values like some ventriloquist Winston Churchill.

I'm rambling. Apologies.

Rory Stewart's in-depth recollection of his time in government succeeds as an insightful review of the state of the UK political system, highlighting the many failures of the Cameron and May tenure, and positioning himself as staunch opposition to Boris Johnson's rotten approach to governing. As my first political memoir, I was deeply impressed.

Side note: It was a hoot to hear about his conversations with Liz Truss (Don't be interested, Rory).

[Alfie Seymour · Rating 4 out of 5]

I read most of this last summer and read the last 100 pages or so this week, and in that time my opinion of Rory Stewart has changed quite substantially for the worse. That said this is still a very interesting read, primarily for its look at the way in which the Conservative Party systematically destroyed itself over the course of the 2010s. Stewart sees himself as someone who prioritised working hard and smart to produce results while being surrounded by a party of blustering MPs and ministers who are just desperate to make grand announcements without any focus on the detail of how everything works. Liz Truss haters will find plenty of fat to chew here.

Anyone who’s listened to a podcast of his will know that Stewart can be a touch extravagant in the way he talks about stuff, and especially early on there are some analogies that feel a bit ludicrous. He’s clearly an incredibly smart and well read person, but describing someone as a 17th century French (or something to this effect) was both unhelpful as an analogy and a bit cringe inducing.

The book concludes by recounting his leadership bid in 2019, and it ties together his points about the failures of the Conservative Party quite well. He’s self reflective on where he went wrong, so the book doesn’t read like a manifesto of how he was screwed. Throughout his career he was trying to play an intricate game of chess while everyone around him played Mario Kart, and ultimately that meant he failed at both. The books title highlights how he saw himself as separate from the political games, for better and for worse, but part of me questions how separate from all of it he really was.

I wouldn’t do a blanket recommendation of this. If you don’t like Stewart’s mannerisms and way of explaining things, you’ll probably find it quite excruciating to get through. That said there’s a lot of interesting insights and it doesn’t feel like a lot is left out, which i enjoyed.

[Charlie Bellingall · Rating 4 out of 5]

Very good book and really interesting read. Shows how dysfunctional the Tory government, how meaningless government is, the flaws of the civil service, and highlights many issues we are facing in this modern age. Would recommend.

[Abby Wallace · Rating 4 out of 5]

Rory Stewart, a lot of the time, comes across as a pompous git. This is absolutely not lost in his writing and his sense of ego permeates almost every page of this book.

Despite this, I actually really enjoyed reading this. Political memoirs aren’t my usual go to, but I found this incredibly interesting. Rory writes extraordinarily well and I was DELIGHTED at how descriptive he was. Genuinely was laughing audibly at how he depicted his interactions with Boris Johnson and Liz Truss and his obvious contempt for both of them. I died at Liz ‘pirouetting’ out of the room.

Say all you want about Rory, but this man is knowledgable, passionate and sticks to his values. This really shone through in this book. My favourite chapters were those about his time as prisons minister, where I think he came across the most candid and attentive.

[Zidra · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a bit what working at a uni is like

[Max Deacon-Thomas · Rating 4 out of 5]

Well written. Ultimately, the idiots and liars who've formed our government for 14 years until only very recently, are indeed idiots and liars.

[James Kimber · Rating 4 out of 5]

Genuinely interesting, but me oh my he’s keen to tell you how clever he is.

[Joseph Gill · Rating 5 out of 5]

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.