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He did it best as prisons minister, inheriting a situation where 85,000 convicts were being jammed into 65,000 prison places and where, perversely, a third of prison officers had been sacrificed to austerity. Violence was rife, fuelled by drugs. He knew that access to them was 30 times higher in jails here than in Sweden. With support from his boss, David Gauke, he drew up a programme to fix the broken windows through which drone-delivered drugs arrived regularly, installing scanners, improving search procedures and setting clearer standards. I’ve never usually been a fan of slogging through political memoirs, particularly those from Tories that only held a seat for less than a decade, but after being a longtime listener of his podcast with Labour’s Alistair Campbell I was tempted to give this a go, and I’m glad I did. However, in doing so, Stewart does not appear self-serving or egotistical. Instead, Stewart appears introspective, transparent and articulate in his self-reflection, recognising that he made mistakes and that he could have done things differently. This enables Politics on the Edge to read in an enthralling manner and to be void of unwarranted self-promotion, unlike certain other memoirs. It also leaves you shaking your head with incredulity & wonderment on the subject of how Mr. Stewart survived the whole hellish process of political life and has come out the other end of the beast in one piece, while remaining a relatively sane, unembittered and balanced individual. One finds further amazement in the man’s stubbornness, tenacity and resiliency.
Penance completed, Stewart embarked on a ministerial career that provides the main course in this feast of political insight. Rarely before has the life of a government minister been described in such granular detail or with such literary flair. Uncompromising, candid and darkly humorous, Politics On the Edge is his story of the challenges, absurdities and realities of political life and a remarkable portrait of our age.The context of Stewart’s political career includes extensive professional experience in the Middle East in both the military and in various developmental roles, and an education at the prestigious institutions of Westminster and Oxford. The latter of which has produced many of Stewart’s Conservative Party peers, notably including David Cameron, Liz Truss and Boris Johnson, all of which feature throughout Stewart’s memoir. Next, Stewart was reshuffled to the Ministry of Justice, where, against all odds, by adopting what he called a “loving strict” policy, long practised by good head teachers, Stewart reversed the endless climb in prison violence and supply of drugs, and made prison a more humane experience. Through his hands-on approach, he came to realise the “extraordinary, sometimes almost beautiful qualities in prison officers and prisoners. It was the first role in government I had really loved.” But you are changing far more lives now – one stroke of a pen on plastic bags has changed the behaviour of millions.’ The book has several moments of self-contempt. At one point Stewart thought about killing himself. He brooded in the middle of the night and often experienced disgust. Politics, he came to think, was a “rebarbative profession”. “In London, I felt increasingly exhausted and ashamed,” he admits. He developed migraines and kept going by taking painkillers. Despite all this, his idealism and love of country – his stated reason for joining the Tories – never quite left him. Not everyone would put him in that category, of course, especially if they happen to be one of the Tory politicians skewered by Stewart in this memoir. Admittedly, one or two of his erstwhile colleagues (David Gauke, now one of the country’s most astute political columnists, being the standout example) emerge from this tale with their reputations intact – or indeed enhanced. But they are the exceptions.
It’s tempting to say that he wasted 10 years trapped in the party politics he abhors. But this book is a vital work of documentation: Orwell down the coal mine, Swift on religious excess. We should be grateful it was written and that Stewart never stopped being interesting.Around him, individual politicians laid the foundations for the political and economic chaos of today.
It doesn’t help that so few people at the top, or indeed anywhere else in politics, seem to have a clue what they’re doing. Time and again, ministers find themselves abruptly appointed to jobs for which they have little if any relevant experience, aptitude or even enthusiasm. Barely have they begun to get to grips with the role than they’re just as abruptly shunted off to another. Stewart deplores “how grotesquely unqualified so many of us were for the offices we were given”, and “a culture that prized campaigning over careful governing, opinion polls over detailed policy debates, announcements over implementation”. By the time he launches his bid for No10, he sounds so miserably disillusioned it’s a wonder he found the energy to sign his nomination papers. From the former Conservative Cabinet minister and co-presenter of 2022's breakout hit podcast The Rest is Politics , a searing insider's account of ten extraordinary years in Parliament A searing insider's account of ten extraordinary years in Parliament from Rory Stewart, former Cabinet minister and co-presenter of breakout hit podcast The Rest Is Politics May’s treatise on the state of modern Britain, The Abuse of Power, is well-intentioned but hard work. In it, she chronicles miserable episodes in the country’s recent history – hopping between the Hillsborough disaster, sex abuse scandals, Brexit and modern slavery. Those who run the country, she contends, too frequently put their personal interests before the greater good. She applies this rather banal logic to parliament: Labour, Speaker of the House John Bercow (whom she clearly loathes) and many on her own team wielded their power to disingenuously thwart her Brexit deal and harm the nation.Politics always seemed to me like some monolithic, Mammon-oriented Rube Goldberg Machine whose main function is to serve itself while using up resources and churning out illusions as well as mostly avoiding any positive outcome based on reality. Stewart’s recent work, I think is an eloquent document of support with regard to this view. Ongoing Covid restrictions, reduced air and freight capacity, high volumes and winter weather conditions are all impacting transportation and local delivery across the globe.
Your crude and uncouth reviewer longed for him to tell the game-playing whips to eff off when they insisted he stay in parliament and miss his train to Penrith; to face down the senior civil servant who accused him loudly and mutinously of using International Development as an ego trip. But the man from Cumbria wandered lonely as a cloud through all the turbulence, keeping his temper, doing his job. I don’t know,’ I said. ‘It doesn’t feel like what I mean by power. I felt far more powerful running a small NGO in Kabul.’ Speaking on the anonymity of his colleagues though, Stewart’s approach to discretion can often be frustrating. As vindicating as it is to watch him expose the ineptitude of many current figures like Gove and Kwarteng, his attitude towards junior ministers is a lot more ambivalent. Supposedly out of charity he omits their identities, but for those he is praising (and assumes will be hindered by his co-sign) he provides little to no detail, and for those he criticises he essentially describes them in everything but name. While his intentions are admirable, it can’t be helped but to consider whether all this obfuscation is a waste of time when half the time the identities are given away through such idiosyncratic detail? (The wikipedia rabbit hole in my search history for ‘Labour MP Defence Select Committee affair with Russian spy’ can attest to this) If you're coming to Coles by car, why not take advantage of the 2 hours free parking at Sainsbury's Pioneer Square - just follow the signs for Pioneer Square as you drive into Bicester and park in the multi-storey car park above the supermarket. Come down the travelators, exit Sainsbury's, turn right and follow the pedestrianised walkway to Crown Walk and turn right - and Coles will be right in front of you. You don't need to shop in Sainsbury's to get the free parking! Where to Find Us How do you feel, about the other parts of the job,’ John persisted, ‘now that you have real power? It’s a drug, isn’t it, power? I bet you’re glad now you didn’t give up on being an MP.’Yet, in 2009, Rory found himself considering an unlikely move. David Cameron had reopened the Conservative candidates’ list to ‘anybody who wants to apply’. He decided to stand. PDF / EPUB File Name: Politics_On_the_Edge_-_Rory_Stewart.pdf, Politics_On_the_Edge_-_Rory_Stewart.epub Nobody expected a move into politics. Certainly not Conservative politics. Least of all Rory Stewart. In fact, much of The Abuse of Power is a similar exercise in self-styling as duty-bound, honest, fair, conscientious and co-operative. It is hard to leave the book without believing that at least some of this is a fair portrayal (though no one will leave the book with the impression that she is a wordsmith).
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