It is the greatest of all mistakes,
to do nothing because you can only do little.
I am a total fanboy for Rory Stewart [R as Minister for Flooding]. He prefers shank's mare to a ministerial car or a white [inside and out] aid-workers 4x4. You can't smell the drains from a car. And you definitely can't imagine Third World poverty from an office in London, let alone imagine solving it. Along with 200,000+ other people, I listen in to his TRIP podcast with Alastair Campbell on the regular. It's a footballer's sort of earner. But, for Stewart, it's not, and never has been, about the money . . . not least because he never lacked [Dragon, Eton, Balliol] for it growing up. Even a second tier patriarch like me [Titchfield, Canterbury, Dublin] knows that financial stablity in childhood does wonders for your assurance . . . and sense of entitlement.
Readers have walked a while with Rory along the Scots Borrrder (with Rory's aged Dad) and on his walk across Afghanistan (with Babur the enormous stray dog) which he wrote up as The Places In Between. That's one source of connexion [apart from the Patriarchy] for me because I've been on a couple of life defining long-walks.
I've just finished the third book in the Trilogy where Stewart walks the tightrope of party politics; from getting selected as Tory candidate for MP for "Penrith and the Borders" in 2009 to being drummed out of the party 10 years later for opposing the illegal antics of Boris Johnson in getting Brexit done. Parliamentary language and practice can be a lot more internecine and hostile than walking between villages in the Afghan winter. I don't read A Lot of books, but I almost always finish those I start. But 50 pages into Politics on the Edge, I almost had to stop because the political creatures with whom Stewart is forced to sup in Parliament are just such terrible people: ambitious, bullying, craven, dim, entitled, fibbing, greedy, hypocritical, indolent, joyless. But I soldiered on because that's what Rory Stewart would do and did. Because he was brought up in a tradition of service and wanted to make a difference. Alan Johnson MP in his Guardian review finds this book is a vital work of documentation: Orwell down the coal mine.
Stewart learned, the hard way, early on, that you can't fix all the World's woes in one session of parliament, so you have to pick your battles: for your constituents, for the country, even for foreign johnnies if you acquire a portfolio in the Department for International Development. You have to be prepared to fail: fighting The Man to make the A66 to Penrith safer by extending the dual-carriageway sections has achieved promises, plans and feasibility studies but still no tarmac despite 30 years of local asking. He took his local responsibilities [duty!!!] seriously and experienced suicidal ideation when red faced by a comment about baler twine holding up his constituent's trousers [bloboprev].
And he took his ministerial business seriously. Notably as Prisons Minister when he went out across his bailiwick visiting a different prison every week of his tenure. And maybe . . . a bit . . . turned around the appalling statistics on how prisons were not working: filthy, violent, under-resourced. But nobody can achieve much if butterfly politics keeps churning the briefs. Stewart held five [5!] different ministerial portfolios during his three years near the top of the political food-chain. Just when hapless ministers get the mettle of one crew of civil servants and start to implement policy, Kaos reshuffles everyone into different roles equally outside their competence and experience. Soldiers are sent to mete out Justice, while barristers take up arms in Defence in a musical chairs of performative amateurism.
Possibly alone of the 650 MPs arguing for the country's future, he read all 500+ pages of the Brexit Agreement negotiated by Theresa May's government. But detail and competence is not what modern politics requires. An expert's considered opinion can be trashed with a catchy soundbyte; a slogan can win an election. Because inertia, vested interest and money (lack of) prevent almost any change happening, few fault the empty sloganeer for failing to deliver. Pointing out that a No Deal Brexit would be a disaster for Britain and Ireland didn't butter any parsnips in the hustings for the Tory Leadership. Rory Stewart, honest, diligent, patriotic might be the Best 21stC British Prime Minister they never got. If you can't wait to get the book (I was +100th on the reserve list at the library), this book launch article in the Guardian covers much of the same ground.
Politics on The Edge won the British Book Awards non-fiction narrative award a week ago.
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