Rory on the Edge

Full of well-written pen portraits of an era of politics that, though recent, feels an age ago, in Politics on the Edge, Stewart manages to capture the tone of the moment in a way that will instantly spark memories for those who were there. His sometimes intimate, sometimes awkward descriptions of political figures, his historical viewpoint, and the way in which he picks out the peculiarity of the times as a time traveller might take you back to the strange Britain and strange politics of the 2010s. The pacey plot takes you from Stewart’s earliest inklings that he may want to try politics to the precipice of his power, it indicates how he feels at every stage and how he changes as a politician.

Inside Outside

Stewart is himself a strange guide to politics. In many ways, he is the ultimate British insider. Including Eton, Bailliol PPE, tutor to the Princes, Black Watch, Foreign Office, leader of a charity founded by the King, and often accused of a time with MI6, Stewart’s CV scythes through the institutions of this country like he is checking off a list. Conservative MP and Cabinet Minister seem like inevitable extensions to his earlier experience. However, as the title suggests and the book relates, the Conservative Party of the late noughties was a strange beast, hungry for power and distrustful of its own history. David Cameron’s Conservatives were not looking for insiders when Stewart decided to join, they were looking for campaigners ready to do whatever it took to gain power after almost two decades of losing to a well-oiled New Labour machine.

Today, the Conservative Party seems to have forgotten the bitter experience of opposition and the compromises it needed to make with the electorate to gain power. Back then, it seemed like it knew little else. Stewart’s exchange with Cameron, wherein he expressed his hope to become a Minister before even becoming a Conservative candidate, captures less flattering aspects of both men – Stewart’s vaulting ambition and expectation of easy acceptance, and a David Cameron scarred from years of painful opposition. Stewart comes off dreadfully naive, expecting a meritocracy where, naturally, his talents would be rewarded. He smashes into a Cameron who understands that power accrues to power, merits be damned, and until a Conservative victory, there will be precious little for anyone, let alone footloose dilettantes who feel like giving politics a try.

Like his previous books, this latest outing is an account of Stewart the insider, on the outside. Despite this, our protagonist comes shockingly close to becoming PM.

Humility

This book has a strange relationship with humility. As above, Stewart can act amazingly arrogantly, the act of writing this book – with its shocking descriptions of the unreal incompetence of his erstwhile colleagues – could be read as an act of enormous disrespect. It does not come off as such. Stewart describes in detail his view of his own failings and shortcomings in his ministerial roles. Though scathing to his colleagues, he will equally praise those same colleagues when they perform well, even to his surprise. He takes the time to explain the enormous scope of each ministerial position he is asked to take on, gives us a rich description of the history-laden offices he inhabits and then punctures these descriptions with the brevity of the time he occupies each position. His grandiosity contrasts starkly with his attachment to getting things done. You get the feeling that his civil servants must have found him exhausting.

The picture he paints of government is of uneven characters bouncing from one impossible job to another impossible job as the political weather determines their fate, wholly disconnected from their own actions or performance. His description of Liz Truss is of a woman completely disconnected from the reality of governing and yet perhaps more connected to the reality of politics than Stewart will ever be. A view perhaps borne out by subsequent events. She is a fascinating figure in this book, a perfect foil for Stewart and, we can only hope, a future podcast partner.

Power

One critique levelled at Politics on the Edge is that while it paints a bleak picture of UK governance, it fails to offer any solutions. Perhaps that is true, but it is worse than that. Stewart’s critiques of his fellow ministers imply that if they were only better, smarter, more respectful, more humble, and more competent, then the UK could be governed well. What he doesn’t seem to realise is that each job he describes is far too large and held far too briefly for anyone to execute it well. Perhaps our politicians seem so small because the sizes of their offices are so large. In recent interviews, Stewart has fallen back on the traditional Westminster line that “real” devolution, pushing power down to the regions and localism, is the answer. While there is good work being done at a local level, politicians seem to want to ignore the lower level of scrutiny that local press and local democracy can subject local leaders to.

It is perhaps a mark of Stewart’s separation from politics that the relationship between power, democracy, and centralisation is not better explained in these pages. While Stewart is happy to train his guns on his colleagues, his Party, and the press, he never targets the hierarchy itself. He always seems to be a leader in search of followers. His current work with Give Directly – a charity that directly transfers cash to poor people, which they can spend as they wish – will perhaps prompt a future book where Stewart can tackle the unnecessary nature of many of our hierarchies and explain why he gains more fulfilment leading a small effort rather than a huge institution.

A long walk

Like his previous books, Politics on the Edge documents a journey. Stewart’s growth at each stage is laid bare for all to see. This book serves as a good introduction to UK politics for budding politicians, perhaps even more so for aspiring civil servants, but most of all it shows how experience and pressure change people over time and in this way, it is relevant far beyond its source material.