No, Minister
Apr. 13th, 2024 01:11 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
qatsiBook Review: Politics on the Edge, by Rory Stewart
When I first became aware of Rory Stewart, probably during his days as a diplomat in Iraq or Afghanistan, I thought he was a curious and probably affected combination of pragmatism and naïve and other-worldly idealism. Over the years, not much has changed about my view, although I remove the affectation; whatever it seems to me, I think it is his genuine persona.
This memoir is of his years as a Member of Parliament, including various roles in government, and it has those same qualities. Selected for a safe seat almost by accident, as so many became available in 2010 following the expenses scandal, he was never particularly popular within the parliamentary party and quickly became disaffected at the Westminster establishment and the impotence of backbenchers. His initial years in DEFRA and the Ministry of Justice (as Minister for Prisons) are written up as if he was baffled by the internal opposition of the civil service to the Minister doing anything at all. Yet he doesn't once refer to Yes Minister, as if, despite finding himself in a textbook example of the situation, he was unaware of the programme: I find that apparent blind-spot baffling even for someone who wasn't a career politician.
The later sections of the book narrate his career highs during Theresa May's premiership, through to the downfall of Boris Johnson's. The description of his leadership campaign is initially joyous but becomes somewhat self-serving: in particular, it's all but spelled out that the BBC killed off his campaign by the format of their final leadership debate, although the Conservative Party membership would almost certainly have rejected any "Stop Boris" candidate anyway. His reflections on the state of politics are confirmational rather than revelatory, but it's still an interesting read.
When I first became aware of Rory Stewart, probably during his days as a diplomat in Iraq or Afghanistan, I thought he was a curious and probably affected combination of pragmatism and naïve and other-worldly idealism. Over the years, not much has changed about my view, although I remove the affectation; whatever it seems to me, I think it is his genuine persona.
This memoir is of his years as a Member of Parliament, including various roles in government, and it has those same qualities. Selected for a safe seat almost by accident, as so many became available in 2010 following the expenses scandal, he was never particularly popular within the parliamentary party and quickly became disaffected at the Westminster establishment and the impotence of backbenchers. His initial years in DEFRA and the Ministry of Justice (as Minister for Prisons) are written up as if he was baffled by the internal opposition of the civil service to the Minister doing anything at all. Yet he doesn't once refer to Yes Minister, as if, despite finding himself in a textbook example of the situation, he was unaware of the programme: I find that apparent blind-spot baffling even for someone who wasn't a career politician.
The later sections of the book narrate his career highs during Theresa May's premiership, through to the downfall of Boris Johnson's. The description of his leadership campaign is initially joyous but becomes somewhat self-serving: in particular, it's all but spelled out that the BBC killed off his campaign by the format of their final leadership debate, although the Conservative Party membership would almost certainly have rejected any "Stop Boris" candidate anyway. His reflections on the state of politics are confirmational rather than revelatory, but it's still an interesting read.