Rory Stewart

"Party politics is so unpleasant." The ex-Tory minister turned The Rest Is Politics host (with 19m monthly downloads!) is not planning a comeback. 

https://www.rorystewart.co.uk/

https://podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/the-rest-is-politics/id1611374685

https://www.jeremy-lee.co.uk/

https://www.linkedin.com/in/jeremy-lee-58810199/?originalSubdomain=uk 

https://www.facebook.com/jeremylee_justbetweenus

https://www.instagram.com/jeremylee_justbetweenus

Transcript

Jeremy Lee 0:17

Hello, my guest on Just Between Us today is a rock star. Don't get excited, Rory. A rock star of the podcast world. Rory Stewart. How are you, Maestra? I'm very well. How are you? I'm well enough, thank you. Now, it's become my habit to sort of trot through a CV or a sort of partial CV. So don't be offended if I leave anything out. It's extraordinary what you've done. I picked out student summer job as tutor to our next king and his brother. Army officer, trying to read the expression I can see on the screen. Army officer, diplomat, then you decided to walk through Iran, Pakistan, and then Afghanistan, which resulted in a hugely successful book called The Places in Between. You became provincial governor in Iraq after the American-led invasion. You set up the Turquise Mountain Foundation, which was an NGO, and you lived for three years in Kabul. Then you became MP for Penrith and the Border. And while MP, you served as Minister for Prisons, which a lot of people will remember. Environment and rural affairs, there's a question mark of whether they should have been joined in the way they were. And Africa, before becoming International Development Secretary, and that's all before lunchtime. You were then an upstart contender, my words, for the Tory leadership, which seems to me to have been built on understanding how to use social media. But you didn't make it, and you then became sort of persona non grata to the Tory party over the whole Brexit shenanigans. You were then a sort of putative independent candidate for mayor of London. Before, as I say, you became a shining star of the podcast firmament as co-host of something called the rest is politics. Oh, and you also lecture on strategy at Yale. That's your problem, I've decided, Rory. You've got no get up and go. Just sit on your backside all day long. And you've authored a shelf full of books, not least Politics on the Edge, The Prince of the Marshes, and The Marches. And the latest offering, which I'm about halfway through, by the way, is called Middle Land. But before we get to that, just let me take you back to when we first met. Because you came to see me about joining the speaker circuit. And we talked about Afghanistan. But we also, I think, well, surprisingly certainly to me, we ended up talking because you said you were happy to speak, about where you thought the UK was heading. And you presented this idea of London becoming pretty much a city-state, and more or less the whole of the rest of the country surviving on agriculture and tourism. How have you changed your mind?

SPEAKER_00 3:31

I think I have. I think there's obviously a point to it, which is that London is unbelievably different to the rest of the United Kingdom, and it's a completely different type of economy. And of course, most of the growth, most of the productivity that's happened in Britain over the last 30 years has come out of London and the South East. And there is always a question, I guess, in anything, your business or politics, whether you invest in success, whether you say it's something we're doing very well, or whether you look at other bits of it and say we're going to try to build them up. And I think we can see now that what seemed like an obvious answer to kind of free marketeers, which is let's follow the money, let's accept that London the Southeast is the goose that lays the golden eggs, let's just make that work a sort of Singapore on Thames vision, left so much of the rest of the country behind. And particularly not so much to areas that I write about, like Cumbria in my new book, Middle Land, which is uh more of a rural area and was more about small businesses and farming, but particularly true, of course, for the former industrial areas of the north of England, where if you go to Easington Colery, for example, you see a world very, very different to London.

Jeremy Lee 4:45

Even I recognise the difference having left London for Berry St. Edmunds, which is a fairly prosperous small town in Suffolk, but it's still a million miles away from London. And when they complain about the traffic here, I think to myself, sorry. Waiting five minutes at a roundabout just ain't quite the same thing. Let's talk about Middle Land, which is really a collection of short diary essays, I think, which you wrote originally as articles for the local newspaper in Cumbria. And to me, they come across as part allergy to the border country you represented, very interestingly not always seeing itself as either Scottish or English, part critique of the way it's routinely ignored by governments, and that might or might not hold for other rural parts of the country, and part prescription to save the people as well as the landscape. And as a southerner, I found it absolutely eye-opening. And I'm not saying this as a puff, although I know that's how it'll sound. It's beautifully and precisely written. I mean the word precisely, precisely. What made you turn it into a book? Did you open a drawer in your desk one day and think, oh my god, there's all of this?

SPEAKER_00 6:12

I was largely driven by the fact that uh it s struck me so strongly that Cumbria is a positive story. The closer you get to people on the ground, the more you see people fixing their own issues, you see a sense of that kind of horrible word, agency, people taking control, uh building their own affordable housing, building energy plants, digging trenches for their own broadband. And it's a completely different story to what we normally hear, which is the world of everything's terrible, Trump's blowing up the world, conflict is rising, the government in Westminster can't really do anything. And I thought it was interesting to do something which was a little countercultural in the same way as you're cheerfully smoking on your podcast is countercultural. Which is to say that we need to actually talk more about what's wonderful about what's happening at a very small scale in rural Britain, rather than getting totally transfixed by these bigger SES?

Jeremy Lee 7:18

I want to actually I'd like to pretend just between us is just on the coattails of the rest of politics. But you're still getting a slightly bigger audience, I have to say. I should probably abbreviate it as trip. I think your devotees refer to it as trip, the rest is politics. Was it your way of dealing with political homelessness? As in a way and a place to make your voice heard, now that you're no longer a Tory?

SPEAKER_00 7:50

I think it started a little bit accidentally. It started as uh an idea of doing something. I was in fact in Jordan in the Middle East, and Alastair rung and said, Would I do a few episodes of this as a trial? And I didn't really think about it very much. I thought it'd be jolly to do a radio show is how I thought about it, with him for five or six episodes. And actually, if you listen back to those episodes, they're very, very stiff compared to the way we do it now. It's become really wonderful because it's of course, as a politician, you don't really get to think on your feet, or you think on your feet, but very, very cautiously, because you're terrified that if a sentence gets out of space you're gonna find headlines hammering you. And I found that it's a space where you're given the time to talk around things. So, you know, for example, yesterday I was making the case that I felt that we were putting too much time and energy in the media into talking about Prince Andrew, that there were other things that we should be talking about. Now, as a politician, I basically couldn't say that. Even as a podcaster, that was actually something that my production team slightly raised an eyebrow at and thought, do you really want to be saying that? But it's wonderful to have the time to step back and question and say, why are we not doing much more on Sudan? And if we're doing something on Sudan, to try to take the risk of talking about what I'm interested in, there is, which is the way that the Gulf states are creating a sort of equivalent of an 18th-century empire in the Horn of Africa. So it's a wonderful privilege to be able to I think we get something like 19 million downloads a month at the moment, to have an audience that's prepared to follow us down these paths.

Jeremy Lee 9:44

I think it's very interesting. I don't believe in silly tabloid phrases like dumbing down applied to you know television, education, and all those things. But I do think it's interesting the way the media and I think politicians as well work on the assumption that people don't want to engage in what's going on in their own country in any depth, or indeed in the rest of the world, when actually quite a lot of people do, and quite a lot of people find out accidentally or by recommendation that, oh, that was quite interesting. And that's the magic of podcasts, actually, which is, I mean, you know, it's a positive, isn't it, among a sea of Helena Handcart stories. Talk to me about working with Alistair Campbell, who I know well, but rather than me say what I make of the man, what do you make of him?

SPEAKER_00 10:45

He's somebody who I didn't know at all. I think I'd spoken to him twice before I did the podcast. He's somebody who had a pretty fearsome reputation, and I think I probably viewed as a slightly terrifying figure. He's turned out to be a very wonderful person to work with, partly because he's incredibly reliable. I mean, it's it's a sort of strange thing to say in the world, but most of the world is pretty unreliable. He has the most incredible energy. I mean, he hasn't missed, I think, a podcast in three years, literally hasn't taken a week off. He will be WhatsApping us at seven in the morning when he gets out of his cold water swim with ideas he will chase down to make sure that the president of Syria is really going to do the interview before we get there. And he carries a lot on those shoulders. I mean, he's he's a really I think he's a really impressive human being. I've learnt a lot from him.

Jeremy Lee 11:42

You won't be surprised that my stories are more to do with him probably being the only person I've ever come across who not only prefers to do all his own deals as opposed to have anybody do it for him, but he's actually, and this is the extraordinary bit, is almost certainly better at it than they are. Completely and utterly without shame, without any awkwardness. Anyway, there's more, but this isn't the occasion. Just a couple of questions about what's going on now, because I'm intrigued by it. UK politics. Is there anything at all on which you agree with reform?

SPEAKER_00 12:25

Yes, I mean I there's a lot of things that I agree with reform on all the time, but I mean I think that's one of the tricks of reform, which is that in any one speech, they'll say things that 100% of the population will agree with. I mean, if you follow them over the last few months, they will say we've got to get rid of the two-child benefit cap, which will appeal to people on the left. We've got to increase disability expenditure of people on the left. Then they'll say to someone like me, it's time to recognize that we've got to balance the books and have a more business-like approach to running the economy, and we'll all nod. None of us, of course, in this are really expected to speak to each other or say, hey, hold away, wait a sec, how does this all add up? How come they're spending like drunken sailors on the one hand and on the other hand presenting themselves as kind of fiscally conservative pro-business on the other? I think that they're also right in many, many of their criticisms of government, but as I discovered when I was running to be Mayor of London, it's incredibly easy to do that. I mean, I, you know, I could get huge ovations by saying London's a disgrace. We haven't sorted out the signalling on the piccadilly line since 1974, you know, and then whatever criticisms I had of the police and everybody would cheer. It doesn't really tell you very much. All it tells you is it's a style of politics that is willing to do that thing, which is say it's a disgrace, I'm going to sort it out. And there's no doubt that's a winning formula.

unknown 13:54

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 13:54

But it doesn't tell you much about how they're going to do when they're actually in office, if they're in office.

Jeremy Lee 13:59

You mentioned your mayoral campaign. I had not long before it was tranced by COVID, if you remember, I joined your team, and my role was to have been to recruit, I don't like using the C-word, but let's just say famous and influential people to back you and come on side. And it was to have been a fascinating role for me. But the more obvious question, I think, is do you still fancy the job? I know you've publicly denied it all over the place, but in the back of your mind, is there any chance, do you think, that you might wake up one day and go, do you know what? I think I will.

SPEAKER_00 14:43

I think i the the the problem, Jeremy, is just how unpleasant contemporary politics is. I was talking yesterday the great joy of talking to Gareth Southgate, who I really like, the England manager. And of course, he, much more than me, is somebody everybody says, you know, you should be Prime Minister. And he being actually quite a sort of smart, self-reflective, humble person, basically says, no, I wouldn't be any good at it, and I'd be absolutely miserable trying to do it. And I think uh most of this have got to be a bit better than that. And I think many of my colleagues turned out when they got into senior positions in government either not to be any good at it or to be absolutely miserable.

Jeremy Lee 15:26

Okay, fine, but most of your life has been given over to public service and to duty as you saw it, of one kind or another. Do you not think actually I could do this job? I thought I could, whenever it was, late 2010s, and I still think I could. And actually, after this time to reflect and to be clear of the pressures of having to say a certain thing in front of television cameras, I think I probably could do it better now than I could then.

SPEAKER_00 16:06

That's definitely true. Definitely true. That I often feel that I could probably do it better second time round. And you do learn. And you get stronger, and I think you get more resilient. But you also realise that politics is, particularly in Britain, a business of parties. Yeah. And compromise. And I find it very, very difficult. And this is one of the reasons I broke with Boris in the Conservative Party. I I wasn't comfortable going out on television saying, as you can imagine, what the first thing a journalist asks is, Do you think Boris Johnson's honest? Do you think he's uh you know a details person? Do you think he's good at doing the job of Prime Minister? And I didn't want to be somebody sort of saying, Well, absolutely, you know, I really tell you, you know, if you don't see the real Boris, when I actually thought he was a terrible human being and a terrible prime minister. So that's just a sort of extreme example, but there are a hundred micro examples of that all the time. I remember being on question time once and somebody in the audience saying, How can it make any sense that people ringing the job centre helpline are being charged £1.50 a minute to call the job centre helpline? And I remember sitting there thinking, what on earth do I do with this? Because I'm being asked to criticize my own government's policy on national television. And yet this seems a really reasonable point. We shouldn't be doing this. So what did you answer? Uh in that case, I said it it seems outrageous. But of course, the public's perfectly comfortable with that. They think you know it's authentic, it's a sensible answer. But my colleagues are understandably very angry because they think, well, that's all very well for you, Rory. You know, you get to parade as this sort of honest, straight talking person, but the rest of us have got to work as a team and we've got to carry these through. And the many things the government does that we don't like, but our job is to stick together and defend it.

Jeremy Lee 18:06

Talking about the freedom that comes with an independent campaign, do you happen to remember your reaction when I told you I was going to stand as an independent in the 2024 general election? No comparison. Remind me, Jeremy. You were the only person I told. The only of a well, not a huge number, but a number of political beasts. You were the only one who laughed. Well, did I give an answer for why I was doing that? Not really. No, I mean I was, you know, expecting, as I was by most people, to be sort of patronized, to be told that maybe it might be a rather difficult fight. Which of course I knew. I knew I was standing in a town where because Sunak called it when he did, I hadn't even moved into it yet. I moved in during the campaign. I knew nobody apart from the estate agent. So of course I knew it was preposterous against the might of the party machines. You were the only one who was honest enough to laugh. I don't know.

unknown 19:16

I don't know.

Jeremy Lee 19:17

I think indeed you still are. I don't, you see, I I don't uh maybe it is a joke.

SPEAKER_00 19:22

Well, I'm not sure it's not a joke. I think that it's it's wonderful and but it's also quixotic. I mean, how many votes did you get?

Jeremy Lee 19:29

Hang on a second, I'll just count them again. Um Well, I'll tell you, I have no reason to hide this back. I got a majestic 819 votes.

SPEAKER_00 19:39

And so for listeners, you know, you probably want to get about 25,000 to to get in. All right, you can make that point. So I mean, the only reason I laugh is is there's sort of it's in a fond way, and I I'm full of enthusiastic friends who do this and like running, and I'm often people reach out to me and say, I'm setting up a new party and I'm gonna run here, there, or everywhere, and I'm gonna take down Liz Truss in Norfolk, which I thought was the kind of noble mission. But it's very difficult explaining to people like you who are talented, bright, have had very successful careers, are used to being entrepreneurial and getting things done why politics is such a strange profession and why it doesn't work, and why the likelihood is that you weren't even gonna get a thousand votes. And part of the problem is that we don't know how to explain that to people, partly because the the reasons for that are very, very uncomfortable. But it would be a bit like my saying to you, you know, I'm gonna set up uh the UK's most successful speaker agency in the next five months, having never done it before. And you could do one of two things. You could nod politely and patronize me, or you could laugh.

Jeremy Lee 20:56

Or perhaps these days ask for a job. Yeah, I didn't I don't know. It was a fun experience for me, and it left me feeling absurdly given the result, but it made me think as though I could do it. And I I'm sure you could do it.

SPEAKER_00 21:15

I'm sure if you were the candidate for a party, I'm sure you could win.

Jeremy Lee 21:21

Well, there's the rub, but a bit like you with the notion of a city-state, I think I might have moved on slightly in my feeling about parties, but we do not need to go into that now. My pitch was sort of anti-ideology and and all those things, pro-values. But my pitch was that I would come with absolutely no ambition whatsoever, apart from serving as an MP. And I wouldn't be distracted or diverted by wanting to climb any ladder. And that still holds. Does that mean had I cured in, I would have been a failure?

SPEAKER_00 21:58

Well, I think it it Tells us a couple of quite interesting things about politics. I mean, I think the first thing is that your first problem is that unless you're the most famous person in Britain, most people won't know who you are. And most people are voting on the basis of the party on the piece of paper. If you were David Beckham, you can run as an independent because people know who David Beckham. No, but but but but this was a problem. I mean, it's not a criticism of you, it's a criticism of me too. I mean, one of the problems running for Mayor of London is even at my peak, my name recognition was only about 50%. Which means that if I appear as Rory Stewart independent on the ballot paper and as a Bob Smith independent on the ballot paper, why on earth would anyone select me rather than them? And that's also messaging. You know, so you might have the greatest vision in the world. It's a lovely pitch you just gave me, but does anyone know about it? And if you'd commissioned polling, probably there were about 850 people who were aware of what your message was. And that's really difficult and complicated. And that's what parties do. Parties take that problem away. They allow their brand to carry people who aren't incredibly famous. There are very few people in Britain who are known by the majority of electors in any constituency. I would say a dozen people in the whole country can do that. I mean, remember James Goldsmith failed very dramatically with his party, despite having an enormous amount of money behind him.

Jeremy Lee 23:35

Couldn't get anywhere. He was the only one, by the way, of all the parties, including the Tories, Labour Party, and others, all approached us, I can't remember the year now, for some form of entertainment around their general election campaign. And James Goldsmith was the only one who spent anything. Probably because he could. Anyway, that's very much off the subject. We need to wrap up because I don't know about you, but I could ramble on for hours. I want to ask you some quick fire yes or no questions before we part today. So, in the next no hesitation, in the next few years, will we see Trump stand for a third term?

SPEAKER_00 24:20

I'll play this game, but let me just preface it by saying these kinds of predictions in the modern world are completely mad. I mean, it's like trying to predict the weather three years out. So will Trump stand for a third term? I reckon there's a more than 50% chance, so I'll say yes.

Jeremy Lee 24:39

Thank you. I'll take that, and thank you for the annoyingly grown-up intervention. Of course I understand that. Will the UK start the process of rejoining the EU?

SPEAKER_00 24:50

In the next 20 years? Uh no.

Jeremy Lee 24:55

Okay. Final one, and I think you'll find this easier to give a yes-no answer to. This is in the longer term. Will we see many more prime ministers who were educated, as indeed you were, at Eton? No. Thank you very much for it, Stuart. Maybe I should have kept it to that question. Rory, it's been a joy to spend time with you today. It really has. Looking, if I may say, extremely well and relaxed and oh, thank you.

SPEAKER_00 25:27

Well happy with yourself. But that's very kind. Those final questions are very interesting because what it will show if somebody plays it in 20 years' time is what our prejudices or assumptions were. So let's imagine Trump doesn't run for a third term. Let's imagine the European Union negotiations start in six years' time. People will listen to it and say, what on earth did that guy think he was talking about? And I think it's also true if you'd asked people whether Russia was going to try to take Kiev at the end of 2021. Or if people said, you know, if Hamas did the attack it did on October the 7th, would the result have been what Israel did in Gaza? And people had asked people three years ago. So I think it's it's a really good to ask these questions, but the reminder behind it is that we are very much prisoners of our age, our culture, and our context, and we find it very difficult to predict the future.

Jeremy Lee 26:24

Isn't it nice to end on a note of uncomplicated common sense? I can hear the outro music beginning in the background, and I have to say goodbye and wave goodbye and wish you gods and look forward to seeing you soon. Thank you, Rory. Thank you, Jeremy.