Back in 2019, I wrote to Rory Stewart in praise of a number of his political views. I liked his concern to bring means and ends back in relation, I liked his criticism of those who spoke to emotions in abstraction from realities, and I liked his commitment to recover both the seriousness and idealism of politics. He struck me as a pragmatist with vision, someone who looks beyond the parameters of the possible within a bust political system.
His office contacted me back and asked me to write to Conservative MPs asking them to vote for Rory Stewart as party leader. I did this, as did others, to who knows what effect. Rory briefly became a dark horse in the leadership campaign and then fell by the way as the obvious choice was made. Obvious, but wrong, badly, badly wrong. There is an inevitability about all of this. Johnson was superficially attractive but lacks substance, lacks depth, lacks legs. This is one for citizens as well as politicians – how serious are you? Having lived my entire life in a solid Labour seat, I heard many working class people describe Johnson as a ‘character.’ Whilst I heard just as many use other terms to describe him, too, there are enough people to fall for the shallow appeal to ensure the perpetuation of a broken politics.
Three years on, I am in no doubt that the country would be in a better place had Rory Stewart been its leader. I still wonder, though, whether politicians who speak the language of pragmatism, compromise, love, and community understand the extent to which the problems of a failing politics go deeper than divisions and ideologies, the myriad protests and campaigns launched from both left and right which seek to exert a pressure and power without responsibility for policies and their consequences. Of course, those embarked on a crusade will refuse to compromise short of total victory of their cause. The problems here run deep in the DNA of the modern world. When the sense of objective reality, truth, and morality is lost, the basis of commonality is lost too, displaced in favour of an endless war fought between irreducible values, the self-created gods of choosing subjects.
Beyond the problems of political division, the conditions of doing politics well are lacking and need to be restored.
I explain my reasoning in support of Rory Stewart here, explaining also the substantive transformations required to make his admirable political vision a reality.
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