The same people that told you they were winning in Vietnam, that Saddam was about to attack you, that Afghanistan was a "Win" and that Biden was "Sharp as a tack"
Have told you Russia is the aggressor. And that Ukraine is a Democracy?
At a general election, that would translate to about 221 Reform UK seats (Lab 181, Con 121, LibDem 66 etc), so a Reform UK minority government, presumably reliant on Con
The more I think about it, the less I believe that any but a few will vote for the Con Party, especially now that it is headed by a Nigerian carpetbagger. Kemi Badenoch, “Carpetbagger Kemi”.
Most people, even after decades of brainwashing in schools, the msm etc, still want the UK Prime Minister to be properly British, i.e. white Northern European.
Seems that the “Conservatives” learned nothing from having been ruled by the little Indian money-juggler, Sunak.
Also, where do “Conservative” policies markedly differ from those of Starmer-Labour?
Wrong. Brexit did not put mass uncontrolled low skill immigration on steroids. Elites did.
We can radically change the direction of this once great country by changing the elite. https://t.co/rPq93StZNV
For those saying Britain needs immigration to solve the birthrate problem, evidence exists to the contrary. Mass immigration directly harms the birthrate. More immigration will only continue the decline. https://t.co/Ig70hgYR37pic.twitter.com/X2Ja7s9lfD
…and tweeter “Elizabeth Chandler” should learn to spell before she tries to use big words to appear well-informed! (it’s “exponentially“, not “expidentialy“…).
Pseudo-“Conservative” greaseball Fraser Nelson is another total finance-capitalist, globalist, multikulti, puppet. One of the worst influences (and/or influencers) in the UK’s corrupt political and journalistic milieux.
I had not seen anything from that grifting loonie for a couple of years, as far as I can remember. She tweeted, earlier today, that anyone in the UK who did not (her word) “hate” Elon Musk had an IQ below room temperature. Well, while I myself do not agree with everything Musk says or does, I probably agree more than disagree, and my IQ was once (admittedly 40 years ago) measured at 156— I think that it probably stacks up well enough even today against that of grifting political idiot “Supertanskiii” (though one can almost admire someone who has made a living for years doing little but swearing online at “the Tories“, albeit that she has also been able to get State monies via the benefits system).
I have not heard so much from that kind of online pseudo-political “grifter” recently.
Fraudulent fake “cook”, “Jack Monroe”, has been comprehensively exposed and become obscure (I doubt that her rubbish ever appears in newspapers or major magazines any more); that Jewish fraud from Essex calling himself “Man Behaving Dadly”, Simon-something (Harris?), has apparently disappeared too, he having conned naive Essex County Council out of over £600,000.
Others have also seen their brief time of influence ebb away, such as non-practising medical doctor and facemask purveyor, Julia Grace Patterson. That one has now, it seems, almost given up trying to make money out of online “grifting”, and has not tweeted since November 2024, though she remains on the pathetic “Blue Sky” site, and has most recently (late 2024) been flogging Christmas cards online (while still pretending to be an active NHS doctor and health “activist”).
As I predicted a year ago, those sort of pseudo-political fake “activists” have found that their modus operandi of pretending to be tribunes of the people against the (admittedly) wicked “Tories” cuts little ice now that the said “Tories” have been replaced by a fake “Labour” government as bad as, or worse than, the “Conservatives” they replaced.
More tweets seen
The British Tory party's 'realignment', in 2019, was based on having 75% of Brexit/culturally conservative voters.
Today? They only have 29%. This is what matters when you ignore your own voters.
“The British Tory party’s ‘realignment’, in 2019, was based on having 75% of Brexit/culturally conservative voters. Today? They only have 29%. This is what matters when you ignore your own voters. The Tories are dying –as I said they would.”
[Matt Goodwin]
The tipping point may have been reached for Reform UK, and also for the once-great Conservative Party. Only time will tell. It is natural for people to assume that large political organizations, states, religions etc go on for ever. Not so.
Having seen a bit of what happened in the late 1980s and early 1990s, when socialism died across Europe and elsewhere, I know that large structures can indeed collapse rather unexpectedly, albeit after long periods of slow preparatory weakness.
When you look at who votes or intends to vote Conservative now, you are really looking, mainly looking, at retired people or people close to retirement.
People who have seen Britain, certainly British cities and towns, turn from being white (i.e. British) to being largely black and brown (etc).
People who have seen large social and economic enterprises (water supply, railways, telephone system, bus network, Royal Mail etc), whatever faults they had, become often unresponsive and failing private-profit bodies.
People who have seen the great institutions of the State fail, and continue to fail, badly— police, courts, judges, legal system, prisons, NHS, border control, immigration control, Army, Navy, Air Force. Civil Service. Royal Family too. All useless, or rapidly becoming so.
What is the rotting head of that failure? The political system, Parliament, MPs, and the now-ludicrous House of Lords.
So when those people go to vote, how will they vote, those disenchanted, angry, let-down people, especially those aged 50+? Not for Labour, which (as I said on the blog for years) has become mainly the party of the “blacks and browns” and in general those dependent on the State for money and/or employment. Only the naive and fairly comfortably-off, in certain places, vote LibDem.
Conservative MPs mismanaged the UK for 14 years 2010-2025. Huge immigration, including the continuing “small boats” invasion. NHS failures. The “Covid” scamdemic/panicdemic. Much else besides.
The only reason many older people stuck with the Conservative Party was the State Pension “triple lock”. Then the little Indian money-juggler, Sunak, reneged on that (for one year), though he reinstated it the following year. I think that that badly damaged trust.
In my judgment, things are now so bad in the UK and, importantly, seen to be getting worse, and rapidly, that many are willing to leave their old habits and loyalties behind, and to vote Reform. By no means only former Con Party voters. Labour ones too. Look at the case of Lee Anderson: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lee_Anderson_(British_politician).
So who is really going to vote “Conservative” in 2028 or 2029? I should say mainly those who are old or very old, who are set in their ways and in their habitual loyalties and, of those, who are fairly comfortably-off in their retirement, and whose local areas have not (yet) been badly-affected by migration-invasion etc.
I do not think that msm commentators have quite factored-in the significance of the Con Party now having a non-white leader. Yes, not the first one, but then look at Sunak’s electoral meltdown.
I would have put that middle-aged/elderly Con-voting group, and or with others willing to vote Con, as adding up to somewhere around 20% of the voting population (General Election 2024— 23.7%) but now I am inclined to think that, by 2028/2029, it may be as low as 15%. On that basis, the Conservative Party may be at the end of the line.
Using Electoral Calculus, and with Con 15%, Labour 25%, LibDem 15%, Greens 10%, and Reform UK 30% (its likely maximum), that would result in a House of Commons with 330 Reform MPs, 163 Lab, 72 LibDem, 20 Con, 4 Green (etc). Reform Commons majority.
Were Reform to get a lesser vote (25%), the result would change to Reform 220, Lab 208, LibDem 76, Con 49 (etc). Still no comfort for the Con Party; only fourth party in Commons.
The Conservatives would have to get 20% overall even to stay where they now are (121 seats). I doubt they will do it.
More tweets
At a record low of -54, the Labour government's approval rating is virtually identical to the final approval rating of Rishi Sunak's government, which was -56.
Just before Sunak left office, 15% approved of his government. Currently, 14% approve of Labour.
“At a record low of -54, the Labour government’s approval rating is virtually identical to the final approval rating of Rishi Sunak’s government, which was -56. Just before Sunak left office, 15% approved of his government. Currently, 14% approve of Labour. (Source: @YouGov)”
That tweeter is the ex-wife of an MP removed last year by the voters. For over three decades, she herself worked for him at Westminster, generously paid out of his Parliamentary expenses. She seems to be pro-immigration, pro-Israel, and anti-Russian, inter alia. Seems to be rather bitter in several ways. She is also wrong in most of her (evidently strongly-held) political judgments.
Certainly, so far as the Ukraine situation is concerned, Russia will not accept NATO forces there, even if under “peacekeeping” auspices. Anyway, contrary to that tweeter’s assertion, Russia need not accept any such forces. Russia is, slowly, winning, advancing daily in most parts of eastern Ukraine.
The war will conclude once Russia has occupied all of Ukraine east of the Dnieper. Why then would Russia accept “peacekeepers” who would be NATO troops under another label? Not the USA? Not the very weak UK. Not Germany. Once Macron stops trying to grandstand as a latter-day Napoleon, not France, either.
I do agree, overall, with the tweeter mentioned, though, about the CCHQ tweet below:
“Culture” or society does matter, in my view, but very few will look at Kemi Badenoch and think “now that’s the kind of person who should be Prime Minister“…
As mentioned on the blog earlier today, I can see the Conservative Party ending up with 10, 20, 30 MPs a few years down the line.
Van Hollen: "Can you imagine FDR in the middle of WW2 saying to Churchill, 'you know, we're not going to continue to help you until you turn over half of your coal and mineral reserves.' That's not how you behave when you want to support a friend who's under attack by an… pic.twitter.com/mKr3AZQeLf
Senator van Hollen obviously has no idea how Roosevelt ripped off the British Empire in various ways, not least by turning the Caribbean, at the time (pre-1941) pretty much a British lake, into what it later became and still is, basically an American sphere of influence, albeit nominally in co-operation with the UK.
The USA also took over, steadily, but after WW2, much of British industry and commerce internationally.
The role of the European Union in resolving the conflict in Ukraine is ruled out. Russia’s Deputy Foreign Minister, Alexander Grushko, stated that Europe must halt its arms supplies to Kiev, if it wishes to be included in future negotiations:https://t.co/ht5o0U4Lnspic.twitter.com/Ph2VCEoUYY
Russia and the United States have agreed to restore their embassies in Moscow and Washington to previous staffing levels to facilitate continued diplomatic engagement, said US Secretary of State Marco Rubio after talks with Sergey Lavrov:https://t.co/rxFNmV5tqEpic.twitter.com/COxFyIm3FQ
Interesting to hear Patrick O’Flynn [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Patrick_O%27Flynn], former UKIP MEP and journalist, use the term “System” as I do on the blog (as when he says, there, “System people“). Is he one of the politicians and commentators who peruse my views, or is that simple co-incidence?
Reform are now beating Labour in the polls. Labour are losing a member every 10 minutes. Reform could soon overtake them there too.
But on WhatsApp Andrew Gwynne cheered on members leaving.
Labour is heading for annihilation because it has hundreds of idiots like him as MPs. pic.twitter.com/CqaskS736T
Unpleasantness ran and runs right though “New Labour”, and Starmer-Labour is just a pointless, meaningless offshoot of Blair-Brown “New Labour”.
Bastani is right, of course, about the appallingly-low quality of MPs. Since 1997 and, particularly, 2010 (and as often said by me on the blog), that fact is inescapable. Not just in fake Labour though; also true of the fake “Conservative” Party, and fake “Liberal Democrat” Party (remember Jo Swinson?).
Reform UK is “controlled opposition”, of course, but is moving the Overton Window. When that has moved far enough, social nationalism can enter the arena.
Blast from the past: the “Mrs Duffy” moment in 2010
Mrs Duffy, uneducated, “ignorant” etc, knew far more than “educated” fake “big brain”, globalist puppet Gordon Brown. In the past 15 years, her superior understanding of the mass immigration crisis (if not put in a very polished way, so be it) still resonates —in fact, more than even in 2010— whereas Gordon Brown is just a washed-up System politician now exposed as far from the great mind he (and his tendentious wife/carer/psychiatric nurse) thought.
Aaron Bastani is far from my position, ideologically. Having said that, he often speaks the truth as he sees it.
Both Lab and Con parties, the main two System parties, are losing all credibility; the LibDems, as “dustbin” or “default alternative” party, never had much to lose.
Trump, and Trump’s White House
Of course, it is easy to see the Trump White House as a Mad Hatter’s Tea Party, looking at recent tweets etc (see below)
Elon Musk's son tells Trump, “You’re not the President and you need to go away” pic.twitter.com/z3e09vbXBL
Looks as though Musk should have a word with the child’s nanny. The child seems short on good manners. (I have to admit that it made me laugh, though; look at Trump’s expression!).
Very odd. Where did the child hear that, to regurgitate it?
That scene really does seem mad, disorderly.
On the other hand, until Trump took over, the international situation, and several regional issues, seemed stuck in glacial mud. He has disrupted that pattern. As psychologists say, a “pattern-interrupt”.
It may seem absurd to want to buy Greenland, annex Canada, and turn the Jew-Zionist-devastated Gazan hellscape into a Mediterranean beach resort, but all of those ideas have at least made people think about alternative realities.
To compare Trump’s disruptive ideas to the campaigns of Alexander the Great may seem to stretch “first time tragedy, second time farce“, in the famous comment of Marx, to breaking point, but history is sometimes moved by ideas that seemed absurd.
Look at the state of Israel itself. When Herzl and others first came up with the idea of Israel as a state, they were just a few Jews in the lower strata of the Russian and Austro-Hungarian empires. Their ideas seemed crazed, and they themselves had no genuine ancestral link to Palestine, which was then one of the poorer provinces of the Ottoman Empire. Also, the Ottoman Empire might have been “the sick man of Europe” but it sat there, apparently immovable in its vast power.
Is Trump trying to make his Gaza plan (“Club Trump?) seem more credible by hiding it among even crazier-seeming plans? One thinks of stories by Arthur Conan Doyle, Agatha Christie, and E.W. Hornung.
Where do you hide a pebble? On a beach. Where do you hide a murder? Among other apparently-similar murders. Where do you, as a fugitive person, hide? Not in isolated places but in a big city. So where do you hide your plan to seize Gaza? Among other apparently-mad plans.
A paranoid analysis, possibly; also, though, possibly, accurate.
Trump cannot realistically seize Canada. He cannot, either, seize Greenland, not without smashing NATO to pieces. He could, however, take over Gaza. The Israelis (quelle surprise) seem open to the idea. After all, from where would come most if not all inhabitants of the proposed Club Trump, Club Gaza? Israel, of course, or Jew-Zionist settlers from places such as New York City.
“Greater Israel”, in some form, seems more than a mere “conspiracy theory”.
When Trump was serving out his first term, this blog described him as “a loudly-squawking parrot in a gilded cage, guarded by a phalanx of Jews“, and that remains broadly the case, but perhaps less so in this second term. Trump no longer needs the Jewish lobby or Israel lobby for political purposes, though he would not want to make an enemy of them either, whether for political or business reasons.
Trump may be thinking in terms of “legacy”, especially after the assassination attempt(s).
Looks as though Trump is also determined to bring an end to the war in and around Ukraine. He must know that the quickest way to do that is to restrict or stop money, arms, and ammunition flowing to the Kiev regime.
That “charity” was set up by Rory Stewart himself. His wife was an employee of his prior to their marriage. I believe that she was married or engaged to someone else at the time. She is half-Jewish, I believe. See also:
My assessment of Stewart, published in 2019 and updated over the years, has proven to be fairly popular with readers. He himself is part-Jew, incidentally, a fact of which I admit I was unaware until an alert blog reader sent information (read the published assessment).
As for Stewart’s wife and that “artwork” etc, funny how “they” are always around when degenerate influences are promoted.
FACT: Whites are 9% of world population and must be protected as an endangered human species…rethink the racist model and see the truth: whites are being decimated by racism.
Ukraine's President Zelensky says he won't accept any peace deal reached between Donald Trump and Vladimir Putin without Ukraine's involvement – follow live https://t.co/Hid5lUXJz6
Zelensky is living on borrowed time. How long before tidal waves of tanks roll into Kiev?
As soon as the money/arms/ammunition tap is shut off, or the flow reduced to a trickle, the Kiev regime will just implode. “Ukraine” is not a real state at all.
Full quote: “I welcome what the Minster has said from the despatch box. Can I ask the Minister if she agrees with me that in this new world, and in the event of any peace deal, that the United Kingdom and its European allies must lead in providing Ukraine with military support…
It always looks ludicrous when “British” politicians of today try to play the “war leader and statesman” card, even when they have some underwhelming “military experience”; neither Sunak nor Starmer have any at all. Neither, of course, has Maria Eagle, a former solicitor best known as MP for having been an expenses cheat [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maria_Eagle#Expenses_controversy].
Maria Eagle is a member of Labour Friends of Israel, of course.
Look and learn. When “they” have power, as in Russia/Soviet Union after the Bolshevik “Revolution” (coup d’etat).
If some of the Palestinian Arabs sometimes do monstrous things, as on the day or two before the Israeli attack on Gaza in 2023, it is because they have been made monstrous by, mainly, Jewish/Israeli behaviour.
That might translate into a Commons with 276 Reform UK MPs! Also, according to Electoral Calculus [https://www.electoralcalculus.co.uk/userpoll.html] 139 Lab, 108 Con, 59 LibDem, 4 green, 40 SNP; 24 others.
Still no majority (50 short), but I imagine that, under those circumstances, some Con MPs would defect, and others support ad hoc.
Were Reform to be able to get even one extra point, to 30%, then, even with other figures unchanged, its MP cadre would be around 298 (Lab 129, Con 95, LibDem 60).
Were Reform on 30% and Cons a point lower than in the opinion poll, i.e. on 20%, Reform would have 318 MPs, 8 short of a majority but with very close to a working majority. The Cons, though would have only 75 MPs.
For the long-established Conservative Party, effectively terminal. Not even the official Opposition. Maybe not even the third party.
Tim Montgomerie has recently opined that the Conservative Party might be expiring; for once, I agree with him. Or does he, belatedly, agree with me?
Fake “Labour” will decline but not so far or so fast, because about 20%, maybe more, of the electorate is now black/brown, and that percentage will increase inexorably, because few white/British children are being born. Virtually all the births now are from the ethnic minorities (who, within half a century, will certainly be the majority, unless action is taken to prevent that). They all vote Labour; at least 90% of them do.
Opinion polls suggest that among those aged 18-24, only about 5%, if that, vote Conservative; about 80% vote Labour. Who are those young voters? Largely, the non-whites.
So today we learn GDP-per-person down again in Britain. Why? Because all that mass low-skill, low-wage immigration is not making us more prosperous and productive as experts promised. On the contrary, it’s making us poorer and eroding living standards https://t.co/bH1j3G70WM
As the Dad’s Army character used to say (about inserting cold steel into the fuzzie-wuzzies) “they don’t like it up them!“
Rory Stewart, as “Conservative” Party MP, voted for all the mean-spirited social-security/”welfare” cuts of the 2010-2015 Cameron-Levita misgovernment. Now his (or his wife’s, which is effectively the same) far more generous “welfare” has been cut back, it’s all unfair and wrong, apparently.
Ha ha…
Florence of Belgravia reportedly makes £70k-a-month for being Alastair Campbell’s lap dog. And he’s moaning because his wife’s utterly pointless charity will no longer be getting $1m from hard-working US taxpayers so they can sell rugs hand-woven by oppressed Afghan women. https://t.co/H7g0eYuBAw
“An Afghan criminal whose asylum application was rejected drove a car into a crowd of demonstrators after reportedly posting a slew of Islamist rants online.
Farhad N., 24, injured at least 28 people, including a child after ploughing his Mini Cooper through a demonstration in Munich on Thursday. The child’s life is said to be in danger.
The Afghan asylum seeker, born in Kabul in 2001, was arrested at the scene after cops fired gunshots at his vehicle this morning.“
[above, Rory Stewart, many years ago in Afghanistan, consciously reprising Lawrence of Arabia; he was sometimes called both “Florence of Arabia” (in Iraq) and “Florence of Belgravia” (because of his well-connected and wealthy background)]
Introduction
My attention was caught by the BBC Politics tweet below.
Rory Stewart MP [Con, Penrith and Borders], who until yesterday was Minister of State for Prisons, a political dead-end, now can be said, appropriately enough, to have jumped free with one bound, and is now Secretary of State for International Development, a position again not quite in the front rank but a Cabinet post all the same. From his new elevation, Stewart has wasted no time in declaring his candidature for Conservative Party leadership.
I have been interested in Stewart and his political career for several years. I was puzzled as to why someone who appeared to have so many advantages (wealth, family influence, expensive education, pre-political career moves, a degree of public prominence etc) seemed to have run into the sand as an MP. However, it may be that he was playing a long game which will yet bring him to the highest office.
I do blog about MPs individually, but mostly those I term “deadhead MPs”. Stewart is certainly not one of those. However, his CV is almost too obviously brilliant. He seems to have almost too many talents, qualifications and virtues to be true. I do, perhaps unfairly, harbour a suspicion that the sum of his many parts may not quite add up to the same amount.
“After graduating, Stewart joined the Foreign Office.[11] He served in the British Embassy in Indonesia from 1997 to 1999, working on issues related to East Timor independence, and was appointed at the age of 26 as the British Representative to Montenegro in the wake of the Kosovo campaign.” [Wikipedia]
Stewart is believed to have been, like his father, an officer of the Secret Intelligence Service [SIS], a fact alluded to by David Dimbleby on BBC Question Time. Stewart neither agreed nor demurred. Still, a touch of the James Bonds impresses the common herd, I suppose…
[above, Brian Stewart, the father of Rory Stewart, wearing the badge of a Companion of the Order of St. Michael and St. George (CMG), the 4th-highest order of chivalry in the UK (if excluding two now-dormant orders, the Order of St. Patrick and the Order of The Star of India)]
“After the coalition invasion of Iraq, he became the Coalition Provisional Authority Deputy Governorate Co-Ordinator in Maysan and Deputy Governorate Co-ordinator/Senior Advisor in Dhi Qar in 2003, both of which are provinces in southern Iraq.[9] He was posted initially to the KOSB Battlegroup then to the Light Infantry.[12] His responsibilities included holding elections, resolving tribal disputes, and implementing development projects.[12] He faced growing unrest and an incipient civil war from his base in a Civil-Military Co-operation(CIMIC) compound in Al Amarah, and in May 2004 was in command of his compound in Nasiriyah when it was besieged by Sadrist militia.[9] He was awarded an OBE for his services during this period. While Stewart initially supported the Iraq War, the International Coalition’s inability to achieve a more humane, prosperous state led him in retrospect to believe the invasion had been a mistake.” [Wikipedia]
Full marks for honesty, but not for perspicacity. Let’s look at the above again: Stewart joined the FCO (and/or SIS) in 1995-96 and by 1999, at age 26, he is British Representative in Montenegro, at that time emerging from nearly a decade of ex-Yugoslav conflict.
This is rather remarkable. Why was a 26-y-o appointed to this rather important strategic post? Even more remarkably, perhaps, Stewart was then posted to Iraq in the immediate post-invasion era, and was rather famously deputy-governor of an Iraqi province at the age of 28. As noted above, he even “saw action” to some extent when his compound was besieged by militia fighters.
“From 2000 to 2002 he travelled on foot through rural districts of Pakistan, Iran, Afghanistan, India and Nepal, a journey totalling around 6000 miles, during which time he stayed in five hundred different village houses. He had previously walked across West Papua in 1998,[115] and has since made a number of long walks through Cumbria and Britain. He also travelled into Libya a day after the fall of Colonel Gaddafi.” [Wikipedia]
“In late 2005, at the request of the Prince of Wales and Hamid Karzai, President of Afghanistan,[15] he established, as Executive Chairman, the Turquoise Mountain Foundation, a human development NGO, in Afghanistan, and relocated to Kabul where he lived for the next three years restoring historic buildings in the old city of Kabul, managing its finances, installing water supply, electricity, and establishing a clinic, a school and an institute for traditional crafts.[4] Stewart was awarded the Royal Scottish Geographical Society‘s Livingstone medal in 2009 “in recognition of his work in Afghanistan and his travel writing, and for his distinguished contribution to geography”.[16] Stewart stepped down as Executive Chairman of the Turquoise Mountain Foundation in May 2010.” [Wikipedia]
By any standards, Stewart’s life up to age 33 at least (he is now 46) was packed with achievements and adventures. Not many UK MPs could lay claim to anything even a tenth as interesting and varied (note my blogs about “deadhead MPs”). Indeed, it seems that, in 2008, a Hollywood studio (Studio Canal/Brad Pitt) actually bought the film rights to do a biopic of Stewart, starring, it was envisaged, Orlando Bloom as Stewart! No film has been made (yet).
This is not the British politics we know! This is somewhere in the realm of John Buchan and Sidney Reilly, a post-imperial Great Game pastiche.
Stewart’s second book, The Prince of the Marshes: and other Occupational Hazards of a Year in Iraq, also published as Occupational Hazards: My Time Governing in Iraq, describes his experiences as a Deputy Governorate Co-ordinator in Iraq.[4] The New York Timescritic William Grimes commented that Stewart “seems to be living one of the more extraordinary lives on record”, but for him the “real value of the new book is Mr. Stewart’s sobering picture of the difficulties involved in creating a coherent Iraqi state based on the rule of law”.[126] Stewart’s books have been translated into multiple languages.
Stewart’s reflections on the circumstances under which outside military and political intervention in countries’ internal affairs may or may not hope to achieve positive results were distilled in a 2011 book, Can Intervention Work?, co-authored with Gerald Knaus and part of the Amnesty International Global Ethics Series. He has also written about theory and practice of travel writings in prefaces to Wilfred Thesiger‘s Arabian Sands,[127]Charles Doughty‘s Arabia Deserta[128] and Robert Byron‘s The Road to Oxiana.[129]
In 2016, he published The Marches, a travelogue about a 1,000-mile walk in the borderlands separating England and Scotland, known as the Scottish Marches, and an extended essay on his Father, Brian Stewart.[130] The Marches was long listed for the Orwell Prize, won the Hunter Davies Lakeland Book of the Year,[131] was a Waterstones Book of the Month,[132] and became a Sunday Times top ten bestseller.” [Wikipedia]
I suppose that many would be well satisfied to have done even one or two or three of the things noted above. Stewart has dozens of accomplishments and successes to his name. A few more are:
“His 2008 cover article in Time magazine, where he debated presidential candidates Obama and McCain, arguing against a troop surge in Afghanistan, has been shortlisted for an American Journalism Association Award
Afghanistan: The Great Game – A Personal View by Rory Stewart, a documentary in two parts that tells the story of foreign intervention by Britain, Russia and the United States in Afghanistan from the 19th century to the present day,which aired on BBC2 and which won a Scottish BAFTA (2012).[139]
Border Country: The Story of Britain’s Lost Middleland, which investigates the rift created by Hadrian’s Wall, and the issues of identity and culture in a region divided by the fabricated border, which was singled out for praise by David Attenborough.”
“Stewart speaks some French, Persian (Dari), and Indonesian. He has also studied at school, in the Foreign Office, and on his Asian travels, Latin, Greek, Russian, Chinese, Serbo-Croat, Urdu, and Nepali languages. He acknowledges that the latter three languages are “very rusty“;
He has lectured at Harvard and even advised Hillary Clinton…;
He is a karate expert (level unknown) and belongs to the Special Forces Club in London, some of whose members were in WW2 secret work, some were in the military and naval special forces, some ex-intelligence personnel —and there are also some who are rumoured to be just gold-plated fakes and fantasists;
“His speech about hedgehogs in Parliament in 2015[39] was named by The Times and The Telegraph as the best parliamentary speech of 2015 and described by the Deputy Speaker as “one of the best speeches she had ever heard in Parliament” [Wikipedia]
Stewart is married to an American woman who had previously been married to a fellow NGO worker. One of the children of the Stewarts was delivered by Stewart himself without medical assistance.
Stewart once tweeted to me about something, several years ago, and was very polite, something that I value. I do not attribute that entirely to the influence of the Dragon School or, indeed, Eton. He seems to know how to behave (though not all agree, I have heard).
Thoughts
Stewart’s stellar career stalled after he became an MP in 2010. Having said that, he has chaired Commons committees, been promoted slowly but surely, and Wikipedia notes that he attended the Bilderberg cabal along with George Osborne. Not that being a Bilderberg attendee is a guarantee of lasting political success (cf. Nick Boles MP) but it does indicate that the primary powers behind the Western throne consider that a person is of interest.
This is Rory Stewart’s moment of opportunity. He has seized it. Once Theresa May leaves office, the Conservative Party will elect a new leader. Stewart is the international System candidate nonpareil. I should not be surprised were he to win a first ballot outright, bearing in mind the collection of fools, knaves, deadheads and frauds likely to oppose him in the contest:
Penny Mordaunt, best known for diving in a swimsuit (she looked good, so be it…) and for being a reserve naval sub-lieutenant;
Michael Gove, pro-Jew, pro-Israel fraud and expenses cheat (I tweeted that once and it was one of 5 tweets that had me disbarred at the instigation of the Jew lobby, so it pleases me to repeat it!);
Boris Johnson (aka Boris Idiot), who proved as Foreign Secretary that he cannot hold down high office;
Andrea Leadsom, a nonentity;
Jeremy Hunt, smarmy clever snake and tipped to take May’s purple;
Amber Rudd, yet another dimwit, though she thinks herself terribly clever. Pro-Israel, pro-EU, pro-immigration. Was involved personally with Kwasi Kwarteng, the “African at Eton” (well, one of them), who has now married, or is about to marry, a younger Amber Rudd lookalike. Amber Rudd’s own seat may well be lost next time;
Philip Hammond, careful calculating Remainer;
Dominic Raab, part-Jew, pro-Brexit, hardfaced and careerist.
There may be others. There would have been Gavin Williamson (who has the self-confidence of the stupid) and Stephen Crabb (sex pest, expenses cheat and so pro-Israel that he could be termed “an agent of influence”) but both of those have ruled themselves out by their egregiously poor behaviour. Deadheads.
It scarcely needs to be said that, as social nationalist and thinker into the future, I am not on the same page as Rory Stewart, so obviously NWO/ZOG in orientation is he, and whose MP voting record etc is far from entirely to my liking. He also wanted the UK to remain in the EU and now seems to want to “leave” but not really leave: Brexit in name only (BRINO). However, there is no doubt that he is the standout candidate now to replace Theresa May, which means that he could be Prime Minister by the Autumn.
Still don’t understand the hard-on people have for Rory Stewart. Guess Brits can’t get over their worship for the military or posh men addicted to lying about statistics.
Military? Does 5 months as an instant 2nd lieutenant count? Or is that a reference to Stewart’s “secret war” posts?
A few more thoughts, 4 April 2019:
It seems that Stewart favours immigration:
“One farmer told Stewart, “All illegal immigrants should be rounded up and on the first ship out.” Some voters might expect their Conservative candidate at least to nod, but Stewart said, “Hmm,” and changed the subject. After leaving that house, he said quietly, “Actually, I’m rather in favor of immigration.” [The New Yorker]
So he favours (mass?) immigration. That would chime with those Bilderberg/Davos linkages. Also, it is all very well for a spoiled son of the “British Establishment” (father was a high-ranking SIS officer; Stewart lives in a country house surrounded by a small estate of a hundred acres or so) and who has always had access to effectively any money or anything he wanted without struggle or effort, to be OK about the mass of British people being replaced by blacks, browns, Chinese etc; and having to live with those basically backward peoples, share limited housing, road/rail space etc. Not to mention the effect on rates of pay, and the huge strain on public services, education, NHS, “welfare” etc.
Stewart is quite consciously remote from the concerns of the British people. He has put in huge effort on his adventures and career, but has never had to. Big difference.
I seriously wonder now, looking at or studying Stewart, whether he is right for the office of Prime Minister. Yes, it is very impressive to have run an Iraqi province (effectively or not, though?…) or part of Kabul (ditto) when only 28 or 30-ish, it is impressive to have walked across Afghanistan etc. It is impressive to have all those literary and other medals. However, how far does that get you in terms of being a British Prime Minister?
As a matter of fact, is it really that impressive to have been deputy governor of an Iraqi province when you were (some say) no bloody good, accomplished almost nothing and got a transfer a few months later to a more congenial post elsewhere in Iraq? I do not know the truth of it all, and I may be unfair or simply mistaken here, but I wonder whether Stewart’s other great accomplishments have a rather thin layer of reality under the surface glitter?
Impressive though those career highlights are, I am unsure as to whether Stewart really does have what it takes to be Prime Minister of this country in 2019 or 2020, as distinguished from being in that high office in a John Buchan political landscape circa 1912, and as a kind of Richard Hannay, a Hannay who is playing the role of an earlier and English/Scottish type of “Jack Ryan”, the American adventurer-patriot who eventually becomes President in the bestselling books of Tom Clancy.
I have spent some time (by my standards anyway) in preparing and writing and rethinking this picture of Rory Stewart. He disturbs me more than he reassures me: he seems rather fixated on himself, his own psychology, his motivations, his own (enormous and not denied by the man himself) ambition.
It worries me that, in the interviews and profiles I have read, Stewart says much about himself, his achievements, his accomplishments (or allows them to be known…), but little about the needs of the world, of Europe, of the European peoples, of the British people. I see little or nothing in terms of policy, or wider ideas, just a self-view that he is the right sort of chap to run the UK. That sounds like a more impressive sort of David Cameron-Levita-Schlumberger to me, and that worries the hell out of me.
Parris is not only remote from the concerns of the British people (though in his case the remoteness comes not from ancestral hauteur but is the self-consciously created la-di-da-ness of the fastidious metropolitan gay), but is also a pro-immigration Remainer who thinks that ruling the UK should be left to people like him and his affluent, cosmopolitan, pro-multikulti friends. Trouble is, it has been, and look at the result! (Parris himself, elected in 1979, was reprimanded by Mrs Thatcher for having replied to a constituent that she should count herself lucky to have a council house, whatever its flaws…), though he stayed on as an MP until 1986.
I started off thinking that Rory Stewart was, judging objectively, far and away the best candidate to replace Theresa May. I still think that he is by far the most accomplished candidate, but I the more I read about him, the more doubts and suspicions I have. I am also disturbed that some of the Jewish lobby on Twitter seem to favour him.
In the end, no System party or candidate has the right to rule the UK. Social nationalism must triumph.
A few recent tweets seen about Rory Stewart
I’ve a horrid feeling it means they are going to do a deal soon. She will announce she is going, the contest will start with Rory Stewart being lined up as her successor. Democracy is dead in this country, I just worry they will do us out of voting for MEPs too.
Rory Stewart abnormal. Who ignores pleas fr help when a quadriplegic prisoner lying on back 24/7 with bedsore so badly neglected & tissue deteriorated that pelvic bone is exposed ? Stewart as Prisons Minister downright cruel.
I thought I’d heard it all from Diane Abacus until this bloke Rory Stewart springs up. Where do political parties find these lying conniving self indulgent corrupt fuckwits? https://t.co/6cbEnUKXnY
Here is a surprise. The MI6 house journal, the Guardian, shills for ex MI6 officer Rory Stewart (whose dad was also deputy head of MI6). The Guardian views his role in the destruction of Iraq and Afghanistan as making him "highly qualified" in International Development. https://t.co/2NrZXzC9tE
The first day of his promotion to Cabinet is an opportune time to recall a classic from Rory Stewart's back catalogue. As Floods Minister he said the flood defences had worked well but the water had come over the top of them. #r4today#BBCNews#Reshufflepic.twitter.com/1N2iHIkvpP
Oh, dear…(see below): I am thinking now that Stewart is rapidly using up his credit with at least some of the public, though in the end the ones who will vote for a new Conservative Party leader will be, initially, the Con MPs in the Commons, not Joe Public. It may be that Stewart will be seen as the ideal “Stop Boris” candidate, someone to rally to. I do not know what level of MP support he now has. I presume some, or why would he risk being humiliated? On the other hand, he does strike me as a very ambitious gambler and chancer.
Am I alone in thinking Rory Stewart comes across as a complete prat. I’ve never seen less leadership qualities from an officer in the armed forces.
The tweeter above is yet another who seems to think that Stewart’s 5 months as a gap-year “officer” on probation is something real, rather than a kind of adventure holiday for the gentry. Unless the tweeter, like others, takes the term SIS “officer” at face value, rather than as a conventional designation (cf. police “officer”, council “officer” etc).
Update, 25 May 2019
Well, here we are after Theresa May’s announcement of departure, and Rory Stewart is on all msm outlets. He has put the knife into Boris-Idiot and may have damaged the latter’s campaign. Opinion on Stewart himself is divided, half seeing his accomplishments and character, half seeing his gaffes. The tweet below is more favourable than not to him
On the other hand, I saw Stewart on TV, saying that “we” must build 2 MILLION (!) houses. My reaction? “Only because the UK has imported millions of unwanted immigrants, who are breeding fast; and Britain CONTINUES to import huge numbers, even in 2019!”
I see no willingness in Bilderberg/Davos Stewart to take on mass immigration. In fact, he seems to support it. The negative effects will scarcely impact him or his family, after all, in his listed Borders country house…
Ah…another tweeter who raises points against Stewart:
and, below, the sort of statement that comes easier to those who have never been poor, hungry, desperate etc…Almost clownish coming from someone who has been an MP and whose votes, with those of other Conservatives and LibDems, enabled the attacks on the unemployed and disabled since 2010…
The country can be a much better and much happier place if we learn again to focus on the small things that make a real difference to people. pic.twitter.com/KfYxEi6E6e
Stewart seems to be an engaging fellow, at least on the surface, but the more I see of him, and the more that I read about his voting record and views, the less I like him ideologically or politically.
Update, 1 June 2019
Ah, I see that I am not alone in thinking that Stewart’s accomplishments and achievements are perhaps not quite all that they seem on paper:
“Though few would speak on the record, there is a broad critique of Stewart that his biography is a little overegged and certainly self-regarding – leading to a nickname, a member of his wider social circle confides, of “Florence of Belgravia”.” [The Guardian]
“Though Stewart has claimed to know “what it feels like to be in the army”, for instance, he spent only a gap year stint in the Black Watch and did not see active service. He can often give the impression his role in Iraq was rather more important than the reality, according to someone who witnessed his work there (“He was regarded as a pretty competent mid-ranking Foreign Office official … He wasn’t a nonentity and I think the view in Iraq was that he was conscientious, but he wasn’t Lawrence of Arabia.”).” [The Guardian]
“Several well-placed observers of Stewart’s time in Afghanistan point out that his much-discussed Afghan walk, the origin of his reputation as an expert on the region, was a month spent crossing a comparatively safe part of the country (“Other people would call it a walking holiday,” notes one).” [The Guardian]
“In general, he has done a lot and it’s all very impressive,” says someone who observed Stewart at close quarters in Kabul. “But it’s not quite as impressive and remarkable as he allows people to think. This is not necessarily all his doing, but the willingness of others to project things on to him … All sorts of journalists wrote up the Turquoise Mountain Foundation [Stewart’s Afghan NGO, which aimed to preserve local crafts] as the most amazing project in Afghanistan, when it was actually a rather low impact thing that affected the lives of a small number of people.” [The Guardian]
“…to his credit he does not dissemble when asked directly about his experience (“It was unbelievably brief,” he told the New Yorker of his time in the Black Watch.)” [The New Yorker; The Guardian]. So not even 5 months? Sounds as though it was somewhere between the 5 months previously claimed and, er, what? A week? A month? A few months?
“Claims this week to have “negotiated in Iraq, negotiated in Afghanistan” provoked “snorts of derision”, the former Afghanistan correspondent Jon Boone tweeted. “Who with, the Kabul guild of potters and calligraphers?” [The Guardian]
Maybe Stewart should not have exposed his gilding to the very harsh light of scrutiny.
A few more thoughts
Since I penned the main blog post, much has happened. Stewart has come under more scrutiny, but also has travelled the country (the UK, not Afghanistan) doing Twitter vox pop chats with random passers-by. At least he is not afraid to do that. He is becoming better-known to the public and apparently now has a few Conservative MPs supporting him; but not many. As to the bookmakers, some have him as 66/1 for “next Conservative leader”, though Betfair betting exchange has him at 12/1, which strikes me as more realistic (making that 66/1 a value bet if you can get it)
“Speaking in her personal capacity – and not in her current role as chief executive of the Jo Cox Foundation – Catherine Anderson told The Courier she was drawn to Rory’s internationalism.” [The Courier]
A few more endorsements like that and it’s Goodnight Vienna to Stewart!
Ah…seems that Catherine Anderson is “an aspiring Conservative MP” who used to be “Chief of Staff” and Campaign Manager for (drum roll…) Rory Stewart! In fact she worked for Rory Stewart for nearly 9 years!
Well, the first ballot has been held and Rory Stewart is still standing. Just. 4th from bottom. All below him (McVey, Leadsom, Harper) eliminated (though only from the contest, sadly…). So far, only 19 MPs voted for Stewart. His immediate prospects look bleak, inasmuch as Boris-Idiot, someone with no real vision, ability, ideas, ideals, nor even basic decency, is the frontrunner still. Boris has 114 craven MPs backing him, so far.
Our analysis of the results of the first ballot of the Conservative leadership contest… three candidates have been eliminated – Leadsom, Harper and McVey. pic.twitter.com/GUlcsa900q
What does it say about the Conservative Party and, to a lesser extent, the UK (England, mainly) that a blot like Boris Johnson may soon be Prime Minister? I am not talking about his character alone, but also his actual ability to be effective. Still, there it is…
Update, 17 June 2019
Well, as I guessed a couple of days ago, Rory Stewart has gained ground, at least in the betting, though the betting exchanges’ and bookmakers’ odds are often not a reliable guide to political results (see the EU Referendum, the Trump election, the recent Peterborough by-election etc).
Stewart is now at 2nd place in the betting to be next Conservative leader, though only at 16/1. Boris Johnson is favourite at around 1/5 odds-on (Hunt 20/1, Gove 46/1, Raab 85/1, Javid 120/1).
By all accounts, Stewart did well in the TV debate (Johnson the sole absentee, obviously afraid of being exposed as an idiot and incompetent, as well as wanting to seem to be the “presidential” figure above the fray).
Having said that, Stewart will have to pull off a considerable coup even to be one of the final two, though that now seems a 50-50 possibility.
Update, 19 June 2019
Well, Rory Stewart is out of the race, which means that, until or unless Boris Johnson leaves frontline politics, his career is stalled again. He pledged not to serve in a Johnson Cabinet, and, as I blogged previously, it is doubtful that Johnson will appoint him to anything significant anyway.
That leaves Johnson, Hunt, Gove, Javid.
Looks as though arguably the worst candidate is about to win…
Talked to a Tory MP last night who was backing Johnson "Do you think he'd be any good as PM" "No" "What on earth will he do about Brexit"? "No one knows" "Why do you want him, then?" "He's the best hope we've got" "By 'we" you don't mean Britain do you?" "No the party, of course"
Having said that, Stewart has staked his claim to be taken more seriously somewhere down the line. System politicians, like revolutionary ones, are all seeking to catch the right wave, like surfers.
Update, 20 June 2019
Just saw this tweet, posted 2 days ago. Worth reading; one has to take its veracity on trust, not ever having heard of the tweeter, and the emailer mentioned remaining unnamed.
So Rory Stewart is standing down as MP for Penrith and Borders at next election. He has also resigned from the Conservative Party. Reasons not given. Maybe, in the end, he just was not hungry enough, which would explain why he did not want further ministerial preferment, or to seek the role of PM, but does not explain why he has also decided not to continue as MP; neither does it explain why he has also resigned from the Conservative Party. Perhaps the situation will be clarified in due course.
Update, 5 October 2019
Ah…mystery solved. Stewart is intending to stand for the post of Mayor of London.
He has obviously seen how Boris-Idiot used the position to keep his profile high until he was ready to re-enter the Westminster fray.
The other main candidates are already known: Sadiq Khan, the present Mayor, for Labour, and Shaun Bailey, the West Indian who will be the Conservative candidate. Sadiq Khan has the support of the msm, the Jewish lobby etc, as a Labour mayor who is rather anti-Corbyn. Shaun Bailey may be seen by the blacks as rather an “Uncle Tom”, and there are still questions around missing or misapplied funds of a “social enterprise” he set up in 2006: the monies missing were never accounted for; other monies, amounting to the bulk of spending by the organization, went on “travel and subsistence”, probably for Bailey himself. No criminal charges or civil claims were ever brought, though.
Despite Khan’s poor record as Mayor, he is probably well-placed vis-a-vis Bailey. Now that Rory Stewart has entered the fray, Bailey is holed below the waterline and his candidature will inevitably sink. Whether Rory Stewart can beat Khan and the other candidates (the LibDem being the main also-ran) is an open question.
London is a mainly non-white city now, and an English candidate (well, Anglo-Scottish) like Stewart may find this an uphill slog. On the other hand, Khan is not a popular figure, Stewart is a fresh and now politically non-aligned contender who, however, has high public recognition and profile. I do not think that he can be written off here, and if that is so, his wider ambition, to be Prime Minister, may survive the presently wintry conditions.
Update and addendum, 10 October 2019
Thank to an alert and well-informed blog reader, I can now add a significant addendum to my study of Rory Stewart:
So it turns out that, notwithstanding the listed country house in the Scottish Borders, notwithstanding the almost caricature “country gentry” persona, Stewart is part-Jew! It now is clear that he is what the Reich called a “Mischling”, in his case one-quarter, his maternal grandfather having been “a Jewish doctor from Wimbledon”, whose own parents were Jews from Romania who arrived in London after having lived in New York City for a while.
Well, now it becomes clearer: the self-publicizing (shades of Boris Johnson…), the liking for “fancy dress”, eg tribal costume and being photographed posing in it, the pro-immigration stance, the Davos and Bilderberg linkages.
More than that: Stewart’s wife, Shoshana Stewart, is half-Jewish. In fact, the “half” in question is the maternal half, which means that, according to the way that Jews themselves calculate ancestry, his wife is “Jewish”, simpliciter; that also means that, according to Jewish custom, Stewart’s children are Jewish (though of course we non-Jews decide such designations according to genetic science, meaning that his children are in fact three-eighths Jewish, if my mathematical calculation is right, which often is not the case; anyway, no matter if the right answer is three-eighths or something else, the exact proportion changes nothing). According to the Jewish Chronicle report, above, Stewart and his wife and children celebrate Jewish religious holidays as well as the main Christian ones.
I smelt a rat about Stewart when I saw that the vocal Jew cabal on Twitter all seemed to favour him during the Conservative leadership contest, but it did not occur to me that he himself was part-Jew. I thought that his odd and dark looks came from Western Scottish origins (as they presumably do, in part). I thought that the Jews were supporting Stewart because of his “liberal” Conservatism…
How do these facts, concealed or at least not publicized until now, affect Stewart’s London Mayor election bid? Damaging, I think. While the Jews of North London will probably support him now, the far greater number of Muslims and others who commonly disfavour Jews will probably not vote for him (despite the fact that the present Mayor of London and Labour Party candidate, Sadiq Khan, a Muslim by origin, has been a complete doormat for the Jewish lobby for years).
Fair comment, surely, if one looks at Rory Stewart’s voting record as an MP (2010-2019).
Without taking away from his interesting and accomplished background, as detailed in my lengthy blog hereinabove, my feeling at the moment is that Rory Stewart is basically an oleaginous, dissembling, part-Jew shit.
Update, 6 April 2020
Stewart is no longer standing as candidate for Mayor of London:
There must be a reason; I do not know that reason.
feels entirely absurd that one year ago this month Rory Stewart became the new DfID secretary in Theresa May's cabinet, and since then he's resigned from that post, run for the Tory leadership, left the Tories, and run for London mayor as an independent
So once again Rory Stewart is the nearly man: nearly something important in SIS or FCO, nearly Conservative Party leader, nearly Mayor of London. Sometimes a candidate has to stick in there and await Fate. Had Stewart not huffed off and resigned as MP after losing out to, ultimately, Boris Johnson, his time might have come, after Johnson messes up even more, which is inevitable.
I always recall being in the USA during the 1992 US Presidential Election campaign. At one point, Clinton was placed third of the three major candidates in the opinion polls. A poor third, at that. He stuck it out (admittedly, what else could he do?) and, after Ross Perot dropped out, beat George Bush snr. for the Presidency, being inaugurated in 1993.
[addendum, 31 October 2021: my point about Clinton sticking to it applies more forcefully to Ross Perot, which I should have explained better. Had Perot shown more resilience, and stuck to it, he might easily have become President and thus, as a non-Republican/Democrat candidate, made history. As it was, he dropped out, later claiming that sinister forces had threatened him and his family. Who were they? NWO/ZOG?].
Years earlier, Clinton, who at 31 had been a very young Governor of Arkansas, was defeated there after one 4-year term. Undeterred, he tried the next time and was re-elected. A stayer.
I should think that this spells the end of Rory Stewart as a potential political leader. What does it mean for the London race? I have not followed it closely, but it must give the Conservatives a better chance, despite their candidate being a West Indian with a very dodgy background in terms of near-fraud (though he has never been charged with anything).
Sadiq Khan was running at 8/1 on (1/8) with the bookmakers. Rory Stewart was at 11/8. Shaun Bailey, for Conservative Party, at 20/1. Now that Stewart is gone, I imagine that Sadiq Khan will go out to about 1/6, and Shaun Bailey go in to about 10/1 or so. Despite his poor record, Sadiq Khan is unlikely to lose to Shaun Bailey.
In a John Buchan story, the Stewart or “Hannay” character would no doubt “retire” from public life only because he would be secretly saving the Empire from imperial Russia, or imperial Germany, or would be thwarting a dastardly plot involving transnational conspirators. In fiction, he would save the Empire, then either be knighted or (and/or) be appointed Chief of the Imperial Secret Service. In real life? I have no idea. Stewart is now, or was until recently, teaching at Yale: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rory_Stewart#Post-political_career.
Update, 22 January 2022
Boris Johnson is a symptom of a much broader problem in British politics – which can only be fixed with new policies, and – almost certainly – new parties and a new electoral system https://t.co/4XUQ8YGAZ8
Had Stewart retained his MP-status, he might now be in again with a real chance of leading his former party. Having decided not to continue as MP, he is necessarily out in the cold.
Update, 9 July 2022
Just read an appreciation of Stewart from the Tatler (2016, expanded and updated 2019). Don’t think I saw it before today. Written by Quentin Letts [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quentin_Letts].
Frankly, nowhere as complete, or as good, as my own assessment, if I say so myself. As for it containing “everything you need to know about Rory Stewart“, I think not! For one thing, no mention of the part-Jewish background, and no mention of the fact that his wife is half-Jewish.
Update, 2 April 2023
Well, in the end, the London Mayoral Election was held in 2021. There were 20 candidates, both Independents and those from political parties. In the run-off, Sadiq Khan (40%), beat Shaun Bailey (35.3%) in what turned out to be a close-run thing. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2021_London_mayoral_election.
As for Rory Stewart, now 50, he has pottered around doing podcasts in the past couple of years. He also moved to Jordan in 2021 with his wife and children, apparently to do work connected with his Turquoise Mountain charity.
That article mentions that Stewart is (or was, in September 2021, when the article was written) thinking of possibly standing again as a London mayoral candidate in 2024. I doubt that he will. The 2024 election will be run on FPTP lines, giving an outsider (in his case, as a non-party candidate) fewer chances.
Overall, it seems to me that Rory Stewart’s political career is finished, in all likelihood.
“Anyone with the slightest interest in politics should get a copy of Rory Stewart’s political memoir.
Not because he had a particularly long or even influential career: just nine years in Parliament and only months in the Cabinet. But you will learn more about the nature of Westminster machinations and how government actually works (or doesn’t) from this volume than from those of many more illustrious politicians. In terms of the quality of writing, there has been nothing to approach it since the diaries of Alan Clark (who never made it to the Cabinet at all).
But whereas Clark was a genuinely bad person — part of the attraction, perhaps — Stewart is a fundamentally good man, even if his self-belief, touching on the messianic, occasionally made him appear preposterous.”
[Dominic Lawson in the Daily Mail].
Interesting that Stewart was apparently in SIS/MI6 for several years, and that Dominic Lawson was said to have been a long-term SIS/MI6 source: see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dominic_Lawson. Lawson is 17 years older than Stewart, in fact born the same year as me— 1956.
However, the allegations about Lawson do refer mainly to the 1990s and focus partly on the Balkans, particularly (ex-) Yugoslavia. Stewart joined FCO/SIS in the mid-1990s, and was posted to Montenegro in, I think, 1999. Tenuous link, perhaps nothing…
“This silly little man has delusions of grandeur“, “I cant wait to see the back of Khan, but Rory Stewart god help us“, “Gottle of Gear“, “Nay ,nay ,thrice times nay.“, “The guy’s a joke, and not a funny one“, “Please no, he’s a right weirdo” and “Oh no! Not this opportunist” are among some of the more polite.
Rory Stewart has now written his latest book. His profile is high enough even in 2023 to ensure msm interest and comment (not all favourable, though):
Behind a paywall, but I include it for the sake of completeness.
[Rory Stewart, 2023]
I expect that I shall buy the book secondhand off Amazon, once it reduces to about £5 or £2. The price for the new and unreleased (until 14 September) book has already declined from the original £22 to £16 or so.
I am not now in the new-book-buying classes (and prefer hardbacks) so the Amazon website is a great boon for me.
Not long ago, I bought the memoirs of Gorbachev, a heavy tome; great value at about £5 including postage from a used-book company on Amazon.
I have now bought another book: £2.80 only, and also including the postage. Hard to believe. One wonders how they make a profit, but then (to coin a phrase) I never was much of a businessman!
I met the author a few times in the 1980s. Frankly, a rather pompous man whom I (even more frankly) found rather unpleasant in a minor way, but his book might be interesting. As for the author, he is now deceased.
(about how Stewart is now angling for both a peerage and a ministerial portfolio from Starmer…).
Stewart’s ambition and careerism are both relentless, if inconsistent.
Actually, in terms of individual jobs or posts, I should say that Stewart (despite his many accomplishments) is a “quitter”, but behind that is his already-noted enormous ambition, “looming like a thundercloud over the scene“…
An old friend of mine used to quote her deceased husband (ex-Guards officer, ex-Royal Flying Corps, WW1, d. circa 1970): “if you throw a Jew out of the door, the Jew will sneak back through a window“… Of course, Stewart is only part-Jew.
If Starmer can indeed give Rory Stewart a job and put him out of his often expressed misery of not being a politician with a brief anymore then that really would be great for everyone including those who are tired of hearing him pine pic.twitter.com/83Q6CfN6Lz
Stewart will fight Vance over 'ordo amoris' but stands idly by while mothers kill their own children in their wombs and HMG arrests those who pray silently against it!
Emasculated phoney who actually cares nothing for the most vulnerable and marginalized.
USAID: British politician complaining that his wife was supposed to get $1M in USAID grants before Trump cancelled the contract. Rory Stewart's wife runs Turquoise Mountain Foundation, which exposes modern art to puzzled Afghan women.
USAID: The NGO which Rory Stewart’s wife works for just has its USAID funding cancelled, The Turquiose Mountain Foundation, teaches ‘liberated’ Afghan women about modern art like Duchamp’s urinal. pic.twitter.com/0IJdoF2Rwn
Oh this has absolutely made my day. Rory Wrong About Everything Stewart whingeing about his wife having her $1 million contract from USAID cancelled with immediate effect by DOGE. Priceless, absolutely priceless🤣🤣
Ian Robert Millard 