Rory Stewart has just announced a new podcast series for Radio 4, starting on Thursday and running for six weeks. It’s on his area of expertise:
“I want to talk about the power and potential of ignorance… Ignorance is unbelievably powerful… this is a series about ignorance. It’s about how deepening our sense of ignorance, deepening our sense of knowledge gives us humility gives us innovation gives us justice gives us wisdom.”
Maybe with practice we can all reach the depths of Rory’s blissful ignorance. Did ChatGPT put him up to this?
The New Statesman’s Will Lloyd has written a profile this week on Rory Stewart which contains an entertaining revelation. It turns out when Stewart isn’t busy agreeing with everything Alastair Campbell says on their centrist dad podcast, he’s also something of a Wikipedia scholar. Lloyd did some digging and discovered an account named “Chezza88” had made a series of edits to Rory’s own profile in recent years, including a useful new section on The Rest is Politics….
When confronted, Stewart claimed:
“That account has sometimes been used by me – I wrote my father’s entry – and inserted recent stuff about Rest Is Politics – it was however also heavily used by parliamentary office, leadership and London Campaign teams (and also at one point by mother!).”
Impressive to have those teams still edit his page when he lost the Tory whip a year before, and no longer had an MP’s staff…
According to Lloyd, later on over the phone, Rory apparently seemed “rattled” by the revelation, adding “I hope there’s nothing really weird or horrible there.” Don’t worry Rory, Chezza88 has been on the case…
Speaking on his The Rest is Politics podcast, Rory Stewart has speculated on his future career plans. After engaging in some self-congratulation and praise for the expense scandal-mired Douglas Alexander, Rory was asked about a return to front line politics. The one-time Tory leadership contender demurred, before eventually responding with “well, I don’t know…”:
“As I relax more, as I recover more – I am a kind of recovering politician – the temptation comes back more… The fantasy is to find a way to be helpful and really help the country.”
Guido wasn’t surprised to hear of Rory’s continued political aspirations. According to a former constituency officer, Stewart never intended to leave Westminster for good. The question is, which party would he go for…
A co-conspirator shared this clip from a recent episode of The Rest is Politics, Alastair Campbell and Rory Stewart’s new centrist dad podcast.
The pair are interviewing France’s ex-President François Hollande to slap each other on the back over how terrible Brexit is and how right they are. All par for the course, although Rory seems to be flexing his European bona fides a bit much. If you speak English in a French accent, you are still speaking English, Rory…
Rory Stewart told Reaction last night that he’s considering a none-awaited political come back, potentially in the forthcoming by-election to replace Owen Paterson up in Shropshire. The former MP was touted as a unifying anti-corruption candidate a la Martin Bell if the other parties put their partisan differences aside to defeat the Tories, however both Labour and the LibDems have confirmed they will be standing. Would be a prime opportunity for some personal PR boosting though…
Guido’s old enough to remember when everyone (see: Twitter) thought Joe Biden’s election would usher in a new era of global leadership. Gone were the days of bluster and chaos. The adults were in the room again – America was back. Even a few notable Tory MPs heralded the return of ‘business as usual’ in Washington: Tobias Ellwood told everyone to “buckle up” because “US leadership is returning to the global stage“; Tom Tugendhat insisted the so-called special relationship is “founded in a shared vision of the world“; Neil O’Brien welcomed Biden’s election as a “renormalisation” of politics. Apparently even Downing Street was relieved – life was about to get so much easier…
Seven months later, and the story is quite different. Ellwood is now lamenting the “demise” of the special relationship, and scratching his head over the premature collapse of America’s great “new chapter”. Tom Tugendhat, of course, appeared in the chamber last week to deride Biden’s withdrawal as “shameful”. Former Tory MP Rory Stewart is also furious, despite calling Biden’s inaugural address “deeply reassuring and profoundly needed“. No one’s managed to outplay Labour’s Chris Bryant yet, who’s gone from nominating Biden for the Nobel Peace Prize to calling Afghanistan “the worst UK foreign policy disaster since Suez“. As though Biden had nothing to do with it…
Obviously the usual suspects also have some explaining to do. Sir Keir’s claim that Biden has “always shared Labour’s values” doesn’t quite wash with the ‘deep concern‘ he expressed last week. Likewise, Ed Davey and the LibDems might want to ask whether America’s “turning of a page” meant millions of Afghans would soon be “fearing for their lives“…
