Review

Culture

Politics

Trauma

1 October 2023

6 min read

The tragic heart of British politics

As political party conferences commence, Belle TIndall is riveted and repulsed by the scandals, toxicity and true tragedy at the heart of Rory Stewart’s memoir.

Belle Tindall

Belle is the staff writer at Seen & Unseen and co-host of its Re-enchanting podcast.

A suited politician stands looking pensive, framed by two out of focus audience members.

Rory Stewart at a 2018 diplomatic conference.

Foreign and Commonwealth Office, CC BY 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons.

11/22/63 is Stephen King’s masterful alternative-history novel; crafting a world where JFK had not been assassinated. The Man in the High Castle is Philip K. Dick’s offering, painting the literary picture of a world where the so-called ‘Axis States’ won WWII. And then there’s Kim Stanley Robinson who imagines what the past five centuries may have looked like had 99% of the European population been wiped out by the Black Death (as opposed to the far more factual 35%) in The Years of Rice and Salt.

These books re-imagine the past, the present, and the future through the lens of two expansive words: what if.

While reading Rory Stewart’s Politics on the Edge, I found myself constructing an alternative present, one where Rory Stewart is our Prime Minister. Now, I’m not comparing the 2019 Conservative Leadership Contest to the Black Death (although, it’s a little tempting), nor am I comparing myself to Stephen King. It’s just that those two words – what if – have been harassing me. What if Rory Stewart had won that contest?

Where would our relationship with the EU currently stand? How might the heights of the Pandemic have been handled? And how might our country have recovered from it differently? What about the refugee crisis? The economy? The war in Ukraine? The war in Artsakh? The climate crisis?

How would these things be different, for better or for worse, if Rory Stewart wasn’t currently the politically-exiled co-host of (the ridiculously successful) The Rest is Politics podcast, but was instead our head of Government? I don’t hold the answers, just a large heap of curiosity.

It’s a foolish kind of curiosity though, because Rory Stewart was never going to be our Prime Minister. And he’s generously offered us a 417-page-long explanation as to why.

The book is magnificent. There’s no two ways about it. Annoyingly, Rory Stewart can add ‘natural wordsmith’ to his impressive assemblage of titles.

At the age of just 37, Rory could already call himself an Oxford graduate, a soldier, an author, a long-distance walker (admittedly this title doesn’t sound as interesting as the others, but I assure you that it is), a Governor of a province in Iraq and a Harvard Professor. Surely these achievements meant that he already had material enough for six pretty interesting memoirs. But Rory had his sights set on the British political arena, which I suppose is a natural aspiration for a man who recalls that,

‘the only thing that had ever really motivated me since I was a small child was the idea of public service’.

With the benefit of a decade worth of hindsight, such a line makes you want to scream ‘DON’T DO IT RORY’ into the page. You can’t help but pre-emptively wince at the inevitability of this man’s naïve heart shattering, can you? After all, these words sit forebodingly in Chapter 2.

But, scream at the book all you want, a bright-eyed Rory Stewart walked into Parliament in 2010. And that’s where this tale of an eccentric, well-meaning, albeit overly romantic, ‘boy-ish man’ (his words, not mine) becomes ‘an excoriating picture of a shamefully dysfunctional political culture’ (Rowan Williams’ words, not mine).

The book is magnificent. There’s no two ways about it. Annoyingly, Rory Stewart can add ‘natural wordsmith’ to his impressive assemblage of titles. He doesn’t simply re-call his experiences, he re-crafts them. This means, for example, that instead of his first encounter with David Cameron reading like a download of the meeting’s minutes; readers are treated to knowing that Cameron was late, that his smile was notably ‘easy’, his hair notably ‘fine’, and his understanding of the situation in Afghanistan notably limited. We also get to smugly enjoy that he began the meeting (in Kabul) with a naff joke about William Hague that had tumble weeds rolling across the international boardroom. We relish this while pretending, of course, that we haven’t had those excruciating moments ourselves, which we all have, just with the luxury of not having Rory Stewart in the room. Rory’s writing abilities invite readers into those rooms and those moments, all of which are usually out-of-bounds. Which brings me onto the second reason why this memoir is an utterly gripping read: it holds almost nothing back.

Rory places his former bosses (who just happen to be our former Prime Ministers), former colleagues, and friends – many of which I worry will also be in the ‘former’ category once they read of their appearances in this memoir – on the alter. He sacrifices any confidence that they may have once held in him in the name of necessary exposure. He pre-empts their rage, simply responding that

‘Our government and parliament, which once had a reasonable claim to be the best in the world, is now in a shameful state… and generally, given the choice between discretion and honesty, I have chosen the latter.’

His most brutal exposures (although I don’t doubt that many will argue that ‘exposure’ is an unfair word to use here, seen as we only have one unverified account of things that happened) are that of David Cameron, Liz Truss and, of course, Boris Johnson (Theresa May actually comes off rather well in comparison).

David Cameron comes across as a factory-made career politician; with learnt confidence and charm, rigidly rehearsed opinions, and an ensemble of old Etonians ‘with floppy hair and open-necked white shirts’ at his side. Rory’s depiction of Liz truss, on the other hand, can be adequately summed up in his recounting of one particular instance. After telling her that his father had just died, Truss ‘paused for a moment, nodded, and asked when the twenty-five-year environment plan would be ready.’ And then, of course, there’s Rory’s ultimate archnemesis – Boris Johnson - who appears to be the epitome of everything that Rory Stewart believes to be toxic and shameful about the current state of British politics. He is ‘ever the punchline,’ the man who, upon hearing the outcome of the Brexit referendum, advised Rory that he ‘mustn’t believe a word I am about to say’ before ambiguously offering/un-offering him a position in his cabinet. A cabinet which did not yet exist, of course.

And that’s not to mention his opinions of Micheal Gove – who somehow comesoff even worse than Boris. The characterisations in this memoir are blistering, to put it mildly. All heroes need a villain, after all. And Rory considers these villains to be ‘senior enough to bear responsibility’.

Reading this book, and enjoying it, is a disconcerting experience. One cannot help but lap up the drama, while simultaneously despairing over it. It is a great read, but I don’t want it to be. I don’t want a book this scandalous, with characters this toxic, and storylines this riveting, to be about the place and people who govern my country, and therefore, me. Of course, the book is not wholly damning. Rory assures us that there were/are people within the system that genuinely do their best for the sake of public service – but they’re fighting against the tide. On the whole, it’s a bleak (albeit enthralling) picture that Rory paints.

Genuine virtue, humble introspection, and noble altruism are no longer workable attributes. Public service for public service’s sake will not get you the top job.

So, back to those alternative history ponderings. How would, how could, Rory have changed things from the top of the pyramid? The King of the Middle-Ground. The Voice of Reason. The Hope of the Centrist. What would it look like for him to have had his way?

Frustratingly, it doesn’t much matter – because, as I say, this man was never going to be the UK’s Prime Minister. Not wholly because of any one individual, or any one leadership campaign, but because if (and we must bear in mind that it’s a big if) Rory’s perception of high office in Parliament is accurate – there’s no place for someone like him. Authentic humanity, in all its varying forms, is unexpected, unappreciated, and certainly unwelcome in those spaces. According to this book, genuine virtue, humble introspection, and noble altruism are no longer workable attributes. Public service for public service’s sake will not get you the top job.

And that is the true tragedy at the heart of this memoir. The book that I revelled in. The book that I wish didn’t exist.

Oh, that future Rory Stewarts would leave a decade of politics with nothing interesting to write about. One can dream, I suppose.

Article

Culture

Generosity

Virtues

4 June 2025

6 min read

We need to rescue volunteering

Our use of the word now reflects unwanted obligations, rather than a deep desire to serve.

Julia Kendal

Juila is a writer and social justice advocate.

Two small lifeboats raft together on a river rescue.

Lifeboats on the River Thames.

x.com/rnli_teddington

It’s a hot summer evening and there are 30 of us sweating in our dry suits. Tuesdays usually mean lifeboat training, but this night is a little different. An intermission from the usual intensity of a team-building exercise: racing two lifeboats across the river Thames. Allocated into teams of two rowing in a knockout tournament, we are going to be here for a while. Our cheers provide the soundtrack for the BBC radio crew recording a programme on volunteering. The mood is convivial; the competition is fierce. None of us have to be here; all of us choose to be. We are a lifeboat crew, and we are all volunteers.

Around 25 million people in the UK do some form of volunteering. And they are celebrated during Volunteers’ Week, which has been running for 41 years. The benefits are well documented these days. The mental and physical health boost. A sense of purpose. The chance to learn new skills. A route to forging connections with other people.

Despite this, though, the number of people volunteering has been on a twenty-year decline. One in three organisations are struggling to retain volunteers, in part due to the cost-of-living crisis making people’s time and capacity more precious than ever.

Beyond that, our use of the word seems to have shifted to reflect unwanted obligations, rather than a deeply held desire to serve. ‘I suppose I better volunteer to put out the chairs’ we might pronounce with the deathly weight of Katniss Everdeen’s ‘I volunteer as tribute,’ glancing to the left and the right in case anyone saves us from the undesirable task. It seems the very idea of volunteering needs rescue.

It wasn’t on my radar to be lifeboat crew, but an unexpected new job in an unfamiliar London suburb unlocked this possibility. When I considered ‘Why wouldn’t I?’, I couldn’t find a strong reason. So, one autumn evening I trekked down for my first Tuesday night at Teddington lifeboat station. It was time to fill in the paperwork: I was officially a volunteer.

Over the months that followed, I found myself wondering why other people gave their time, energy and skills to complete the nearly 50 training modules and to be available 24/7 when someone on the water was in need. I hungered for people’s stories, to know why they kept answering the call when their beds were warm and the night was unknown. So, over the four years that I was on the crew, I asked them. I spoke with teachers and students, company directors and full-time parents. I heard stories of multiple generations on a crew, their family’s blood running orange and blue. One woman spoke of overcoming her fear of heights to scale the side of a boat; another had an unexpected tale of a dolphin attack. Each time, I had the same question: why do you do it?

And I was struck by the fact that none of them gave an answer that fully added up. They could name parts of it: care for people, teamwork, a love of the sea. Sometimes of the reasons they started (‘Dad did it’) were not why they stayed on (‘I could make a palpable difference’). I didn’t meet anyone who didn’t enjoy being on the water. Play and peril can co-exist – and we need to have moments of joy along the way if we’re going to be in it for the long haul. But in each case, the answers always seemed to come up a little short. If I was looking for something neat and complete, I wasn’t finding it.

This is, perhaps, the difference between volunteering and having a hobby. At some point, volunteering will cost you something.

Back on the river, the knockout races are suddenly interrupted. A call from the coastguard: there’s a person in difficulty in the river. The mood switch is instantaneous; the action swings from contesting to collaborating to get a boat headed upstream as fast as possible. Somewhere, someone is having a very bad day. This is what we exist for.

The RNLI was born out of a need. In the early nineteenth century, nearly 2,000 ships – and their crews – were being wrecked on British and Irish coasts every year. Sir William Hillary saw this loss firsthand from his home on the Isle of Man, joining with others to rescue as many as possible – but it wasn’t enough. People continued to perish. So, he rallied other activists and philanthropists, and in a London pub, the charity now called the Royal National Lifeboat Institution was formed. Hillary’s motto, 'with courage, nothing is impossible’, can still be found adorning lifeboat stations around the country.

None of the lifeboat crew members that I met seemed to think of themselves as anything but ordinary. They were full of admiration in the stories of fellow crew mates, but saw themselves as entirely human, naming everyday needs and familiar comforts. Writing about courage, Andrew Davison recognised that,

‘The willingness of a courageous person to forgo ease, safety, the comforts of home, and even to risk life and limb, does not spring from hatred of any of those things’.

This is, perhaps, the difference between volunteering and having a hobby (also commendable for its health benefits, sense of purpose, opportunities for connection). At some point, volunteering will cost you something. That sacrifice is needed demonstrates the level of care; otherwise, it’s simply another act of self-actualisation in the service of the volunteer themselves.

It’s dark on the river and the boat crew is still out. The BBC’s team has packed up for the evening. We have tidied the station, no evidence of the antics of hours earlier. We depart. Close to midnight, those of us who can, return. We bring the boat in from the water, and make it ready for the next call, which will inevitably come. One less job for those who’ve been on duty all evening. It’s the least we can do.

In the origins of the term is a spirit of offering. The Latin voluntaries carries a sense of ‘to give of one’s free will’. This, perhaps, is where we’ve lost our way with the whole idea. For there to be a sense of duress in volunteering is to strip the generous act of its power. Where there is obligation on one side and self-interest on the other, we can find the middle ground marked by devotion, by having chosen to serve and therefore having the commitment to see it through. This is the invitation that volunteering can offer us, and that I glimpsed from people who had been volunteering on the lifeboats for decades.

Writing to the sea-faring city of Ephesus in ancient Greece, the church leader Paul encouraged people to ‘submit to one another’, which is another way of saying sacrificially help each other. In smaller coastal communities, a lifeboat crew might be called out to save a family member. In London, a city of millions, it will always be a stranger. But either way the decision was the same: to show up. The reasons why we do it don’t always add up. There are flavours of compassion, of wanting to be useful, to be part of something bigger. But there seems to be something else as well. A dedication to meeting a need. Put another way, we might call it love.

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