Politics On the Edge: The instant #1 Sunday Times bestseller from the host of hit podcast The Rest Is Politics Hardcover – 14 Sept. 2023

This is a marvelous book and a must-read for anyone remotely interested in British politics. Rory Stewart is not only thoughtful, inciteful and erudite but he writes very well indeed. His dissection of the ills of British political institutions and politicians is spot on. And he not only criticizes but offers many thoughts on how to improve matters. If you were in any doubt as to whether Rory Stewart is a man of integrity who cares deeply for his country then read this book: any doubts you may have harboured will be dispelled. He does not hold back on his view of some of the awful politicians with whom he worked: but this is not done for prurience's sake but to highlight how broken our system is. The bool is a delight: read it!

Rory Stewart has produced an interesting account of his time in formal politics. He describes his selection and election as the MP for the constituency of Penrith and the Borders, a sparsely populated area with the England-Scotland border at its northern edge. He then describes his time as a backbench MP, his constituency work and his move into the lower ministerial ranks of several departments. All the time he is energetic in his approach and willing to consider new methods. All the time he is also confronted with the difficulty of getting things done and the realisation that politics often gets in the way.Rory Stewart had an interesting life before politics (1). He was lucky to get a constituency so quickly. He survived the premierships of David Cameron and Theresa May. As a Scot and a Unionist, he survived the Scottish Referendum. As a Remainer, he survived Brexit. But he could not survive Boris Johnson (2).THE BOOK: Even though this is a shortened version of the draft (3), this is a hefty book of just over 450 pages. There are 26 short chapters grouped into six parts (4). Unfortunately, there are no illustrations. A map of his large constituency would have been a useful reference.THE FRONT COVER is a black and white photograph by Phil Rigby showing Rory Stewart striding across a gap from one stone support to another. It is a simple, striking image. But what happened once the photograph was taken? Rory Stewart had to complete the action and either get both feet across or both feet back without falling into the gap.__________________________________________________________________________________(1) He was in the army, the Foreign Office and Iraq  Occupational Hazards: My Time Governing in Iraq , founded a charity in Afghanistan and taught at Harvard. He also had a penchant for long walks, recounted in his walk from Herat to Kabul  The Places In Between  and his walk along the Scotland-England border  The Marches: A Borderland Journey Between England and Scotland .“’The problem with you, Rory’, Liz said to me, conversationally, ‘is you try to be interesting in Parliament and the media. Never be interesting.’” (Page 156, Chapter 9, “Red Box”, Talking with Liz Truss, his boss at DEFRA).(2) “Boris Johnson, having failed to prorogue Parliament, or deliver Brexit by 31 October has called an election for December. I am no longer a Cabinet minister, having resigned as soon as Boris Johnson became prime minister on 24th July. I am no longer a Conservative since Boris Johnson has thrown twenty-one of us out of the party for continuing to vote against a no-deal Brexit. But I would not be prepared, in any case, to campaign for him or his manifesto. Since I am unwilling to run as an independent in Penrith against people I have worked with for a decade, I will soon no longer be a Member of Parliament.”(Page 415, Chapter 26, Quaestor)(3) “This is a highly condensed version of my experience. The first draft of this book was 220,000 words long and still covered only a fraction of the events between 2010 and 2019. I have cut half of the material entirely. Anyone interested in my involvement as a backbencher in Libya or the campaign for community hospitals, my speeches inside and outside the House of Commons, my arguments as a minister over Yemen policy and rewilding, my fight with the Government over Covid policy, or my run as an Independent to be mayor of London, would have to get their hands on the unpublished draft. For those stories are no longer included. Nor are my detailed attempts to analyse Boris Johnson, populism, the hope for the centre ground, or the place of ethics in politics.(Author’s Note page x)(4) CONTENTSAuthor’s NoteProloguePART ONE1. Suddenly Coming Alive 2. Gajumaru Trees 3. The Livestock Ring 4. The Empty Hall 5. One Nation“’If anyone . . . is interested . . . in history’ he said gruffly, ‘you should book a guide for a parliamentary tour’. As he continued, certain hints on how he wanted Parliament to work glinted beneath the surface of his words, like shopping trolleys in a city canal. We should not regard debates as opportunities for open discussion: we might be called legislators, but we were not intended to overly scrutinise legislation; we might become members of independent committees, but we were expected to be loyal to the party; and votes would rarely entail a free exercise in judgement. To vote too often on your conscience was to be a fool and ensure you were never promoted to become a minister. In short, politics was a ‘team-sport’.”(Page 52, Chapter 4, “The Empty Hall”, Talk given to new MPs)“He reminded me of an eighteenth-century French cardinal: wryly observant of colleagues, capable of breathtaking cynicism, but also erudite, irreverent, poised, witty, self-mocking and engaged.”(Page 67, Chapter 4, “The Empty Hall”, on George Osborne)PART TWO6. District Commissioner for Cumbria 7. Team Player 8. Select Committee“Five minutes before the vote, George Osborne approached me outside the lobby.‘Rory, I am going to promote you to be a minister in ten days’ time.’ He was drawing here on his reputation as the person Cameron listened to most closely. ‘But if you walk through that door,’ he said, indicating the ‘no’ lobby for the Lords Reform Bill, ‘you will, I promise, not be promoted in the rest of this parliament. You will be a backbencher for at least five years.’ I walked through the door. The bill was heavily defeated. The House of Lords was not changed. The party did not get the electoral boundary changes which it wanted from the Lib Dems. Osborne was true to his word.”(Page 127/128, Chapter 7, “Team Player”)PART THREE9. Red Box 10. Particulate Matter 11. Plenipotentiary Powers 12. 2017 Election“Hello, Secretary of State. Yes, Rory? . . .Liz was younger than me. We had entered Parliament together and David Cameron had made her a Cabinet minister within four years – when she was thirty-eight. I was told that she had been promoted faster than anyone because she was a ‘strong media performer’. Intrigued by this I had watched a number of her interviews. In none of them had she reflected, apologised, explained, empathised, or attempted to persuade. Nor did she ever, except in the rarest cases, answer a question. Instead, she approached interviews as broadcasts: opportunities to repeat the party attack line, never giving ground, or varying her tone. I wondered how Cameron had developed any views on her skills as a minister; her ability to inspire civil servants, or be patient with difficult briefs.”(Page 156, Chapter 9, “Red Box”, Conversation with Liz Truss, his new boss)PART FOUR13. ‘A Balliol Man in Africa’ 14. The People’s Political Consultative Conference“A few weeks later, at a Conservative Party event I was approached by a close aid of a wealthy Russian, Evgeny Lebedev. She said he would like me to come to stay for the weekend at his castle in Italy. A celebrity was coming who had made her name modelling topless in the Sun.I said, as politely as I could, that this was a joke. ‘I’ve just become a foreign minister. There’s no way I can possibly go . . . the man’s father was an officer in the KGB.’‘Oh, don’t worry about that,’ she replied, Boris Johnson is coming, and he is Foreign Secretary.’He went. I did not.”(Page 219, Chapter 13, ‘A Balliol Man in Africa’, as a minister in the Foreign Office, Boris Johnson was his new boss, although he also kept his job at the DfID under Priti Patel. Evgeny Lebedev is now in the House of Lords, nominated by Boris Johnson)PART FIVE15. Unlearning Helplessness 16. Barking at Drones 17. Backstop 18. Resignation 19. Loving Strict“Confronted with prisoners and prisons, I was beginning to feel some of the shock that I felt walking through a slum in Nairobi, intensified with shame at the fact that this was Britain. Despite our complacent boasts of liberal progress, government after government had left prisoners in conditions that seemed more dangerous and squalid than prisoners had experienced in the same jails in Victorian Britain. And I realised that in nearly eight years as an MP, I had hardly thought about prisons.”(Page 261, Chapter 17, “Barking at Drones”)PART SIX20. The Vanishing Middle 21. Secretary of State 22. Leadership 23. Standing Up 24. Pinocchio 25. Pro-rogue 26. Quaestor“But to put an egotistical chancer like Boris Johnson into the heart of a system that was already losing its dignity, restraint and seriousness was to invite catastrophe. As the heir to fifteen years of crisis, he would be able, like Jeremy Corbyn, to appeal to nostalgia for an imagined lost Britain, reject all traditional consensus as an establishment conspiracy, deny the complexity of society and economy, and misrepresent what Britain shared, or what it could realistically be.He would be able to generate a tissue of evasions, half-truths and lies, to mobilise a right-wing voter base; and destroy what was left of the moderate One-Nation tradition in the Conservative Party. He would polarise an already divided country. He would damage our economy and constitution; create a weeping wound in Ireland and further alienate Scotland. His government world be ever more allergic to detail, indifferent to the truth, increasingly shameless to their support for a shameless leader, and incapable to responding deftly or thoughtfully to the problem of the modern age.”(Page 357, Chapter 22, “Leadership”)Dramatis Personae (4 pages)Glossary (9 pages)Acknowledgements (2½ pages)Index (18 pages)

There are probably millions of books about politics and I have only read a dozen or so, but this one was the greatest page-turner, and the most interesting - maybe because Rory didn’t make it to the top job, despite coming very close. I think he may be the best Prime Minister we never had - and I have no doubt that he would have been far better than Boris. I would highly recommend that you read this book. Rory comes across as truthful, committed, intelligent, analytical, open, honest, driven to improve the country - all qualities sadly lacking in so many MPs, as laid bare in this book. I can only just grasp why such a principled man would want to immerse himself in the squalor, dishonesty, personalised aggression and media contempt of politics, but I’m pleased that he did, and that he produced this memoir, which, unfortunately, just makes me sadder and more disappointed about the state of our political system.

I always thought that Rory was a good guy. The first time I saw him on television, I instantly warmed to him. He never sounded like a Conservative politician to me!His life prior to politics was exceptional. After Eton, he spent a year in the army, and he was a diplomat in Indonesia, Bosnia, Afghanistan and Iraq. He did a two year walk across Afghanistan, Iran, Pakistan, India, and Nepal and wrote a best-selling book about it. He ran a charity in Kabul and was an academic at Harvard University. That’s a brief summary. One thing you can say about Rory is that he always gives 100%. He didn't just do the job, he ‘went native’.In his first term as an MP, he learned the ropes and missed out on promotion for defying the whips on one occasion. He is often scathing about his fellow MPs. His comments on Boris Johnson are particularly sharp. There are many superb anecdotes. Here’s one that tickled me, campaigning in Cumbria, he writes;“I began to notice that if a house was filled with books, the occupants would not be voting Conservative.”In his second term, he was given the first of several ministerial posts. He set about his roles doggedly. He was criticised as a minister for being too much of a civil servant and not enough of a politician. This may be true. I'm not sure. He was seemingly passionate in every ministerial role, especially regarding prisons. He visited many, spoke to governors, staff, prisoners. On one occasion he spent a night in a cell and wore a tag. If the UK had the electric chair, Rory would have gone for a ride in Old Sparky just to prove it was a cruel and unusual punishment. Joking aside, he did a lot of good work as Prisons and Probations Minister.He doesn’t say much about opposition parties in this book, but he has a lot to say about his fellow Tory MPs, and most (not all) of it is pretty damning. So why was he so loyal, for so long, to a party that (in my view) did not deserve him? That question isn't really answered.He criticises Boris Johnson and for sure, bad government is a bad thing. But, hang on, we're a democracy. In defence of Johnson, his values surely reflect those of the nation? Democracy is a kind of mirror. The government doesn't care about prisons because they rightly spot that the voters don't. The government ignores the homeless because most voters do. When Johnson won the leadership contest and then an election, the Conservative Party and the country got what we deserved. He won by democratic process.In the final act, Stewart stood in that leadership contest like Luke Skywalker trying to become a Sith Lord. With Boris in place, Rory Stewart is soon booted out of the Conservative Party. I was reminded of Caesars, purging the senators disloyal to him.This is a lengthy review, but there is so much more I could have said about this outstanding memoir. I think the ‘Politics on the Edge’ is a tragedy of Shakespearean proportions. The really sad thing for me is that he would have been a brilliant Labour Prime Minister.

There is such a thing as a good Tory! I didn’t think they existed. What a good PM Rory would have made. Although this book does make it feel a little like he was the only person in Westminster who wasn’t a back stabbing simpleton (maybe he was). The end in particular comes across like a pretty decent political thriller. Can’t wait for the BBC adaptation!

dreiviertel des buches sind überflüssig, aber die kapitel zu inside brexit ein lesevergnügen

Rory Stewart should have been the UK Prime Minister. His memoir successfully narrates his political career in an age of political turmoil in Britain. His writing style is always interesting and sincere. I have no doubt that every word is true.

Should be read in schools and universities, printed in whole in newspapers, everyone needs to know this. Respect to Mr Stewart for staying true to his principles.

Excellent Diagnosis of British political ailments.