Politics On the Edge

I’ve never read a political memoir before. I did try a biography of Margaret Thatcher once, in a bid to understand her time in office better, but it was so dry and analytical I gave up. That’s the last thing you could say about Rory Stewart’s book.

For a start, the man can write. He’s got a command of language and structure that makes you keep reading. Wanting to keep reading. Unlike a lot of memoirs by people in the public eye, the book is not a string of, ‘We did this. Then we did that. And then we moved on to the next thing.’ The narrative moves from incident to incident with a supple, fluent grace that’s a pleasure to read.

It helps, too, that he’s prepared to own up to his own mistakes and miscalculations. Yes, it’s his book, about him, by him, and he’s keen to present his version of his time in office. But he’s happy to admit that there were ministries he was appointed to he knew nothing about. (Although he made commendable efforts to understand them once he arrived.) And his bid for prime minister didn’t go as well as it might.

He comes across as a man who really did go into politics to serve, to do something to better the lives of his constituents. (And later, all those who fell under the purview of his ministries.) But he seems to have stepped into a world where ambition was geared first to personal progress and only then - perhaps - to the benefit of anyone else in the rest of the country.

‘Follow the party line. Repeat the talking points. Don’t make waves,’ is the mantra. And in the case of Boris Johnson, keep telling the jokes and convincing the electorate that being a jolly good bloke is somehow all the qualification you need to become PM. Stewart does not hold back on the Pfeffel, who he held in low regard from the beginning. Liz Truss doesn’t come out well, either. Nor do Kwasi Kwarteng and a handful of other notables.

Yet it strikes me as a book written more in despair at a lost political system than gleeful character assassination. Reading it, you can’t help wondering what might have happened had Stewart become the PM. Only to realise that with the candidates he’d beaten snapping at his heels, he probably wouldn’t have lasted much longer than the lettuce.