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.

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

Change

Politics

Psychology

5 November 2024

5 min read

How to be a wise diplomat about the election result

It’s not just American citizens weighing-up and trading-off.

Emerson Csorba

Emerson writes on geopolitics. He is also a business executive and holds a doctorate in theology.

An ambassador presents credential to President Trump

President Trump accepts credentials from Indonesian ambassador M. Lutfi.

White House via Wikimedia Commons.

The American election result, whatever the case, is a landmark event in geopolitics. And here, it is unclear which result is better for the world in the long-term, given the ambiguous motives, interests and intentions of its main characters.

Whereas the Biden Administration led by the Democrats has been fraught with war, the Trump Administration was comparatively peaceful, with breakthroughs such as the historic Abraham Accords. Yet, the rhetoric of President Trump is aggressive and divisive.

Despite mainstream media assertions focused on the clear best choice in the election, a balanced perspective is necessary involving consideration of trade-offs between what the parties and their leaders each offer. This balance, however, is difficult to achieve as polarisation encourages retrenchment into simple views.

As the American election approaches, it is worth considering what a diplomatic approach to an election transition might entail. Here we can look to the example of Henry Kissinger, whose diplomatic mindset is illustrated in Barry Gewen’s The Inevitability of Tragedy. Gewen eloquently illustrates the Kissingerian – even if often cold-hearted – approach to the consideration of trade-offs in diplomacy.

Gewen traces the early-life experience of Kissinger, a German Jew forced to flee Nazi persecution, both serving in the US Army and attending Harvard. Unlike his American peers, Kissinger understood through personal experience that authoritarianism could rise through democratic means, Adolph Hitler the primary example.

It is partly for this reason that Kissinger was willing as US Secretary of State to intervene in the affairs of foreign states to halt dictators emerging through democratic processes. The trade-off was here between respect of democratic process and the possibility of dictatorship, a trade-off which Americans without German-Nazi experience would never understand and which they saw as deeply unsettling.

Kissinger is the archetypal diplomat. His example is worth reflecting on in the wake of the American elections. Kissinger approached geopolitics with little emotion, instead considering what course of action in a particular situation served as the least worst evil available.

He engaged across a wide variety of networks, talking with individuals who would not speak with each other. And he maintained a considerable sense of calm throughout his career as both an actor and commentator, responding to events as they developed.

An initial consideration in emerging from the American elections is that too much emotionality – amplified by political polarization – will expose politicians, diplomats and the public to risk. Emotion colours careful, strategic calculation of various scenarios and actions across potential scenarios.

‘People constantly show you who they are; we are just too busy to notice,’

An effective diplomatic (or strategist) will carefully consider what might happen and think through potential steps in case these realities actually transpire, while recognising that too much anticipation risks cascading into fantasy. Too much emotion impedes this careful process of reflection and deliberation as part of the development of strategy.

A second element of effective diplomacy and strategy is to consider people as they are, rather than rely on superficial descriptions in the media, biased second-hand accounts or who or what one hopes another person is. People’s motives, intentions and interests are not easily discernible at first glance, instead requiring careful probing and questioning.

At the same time, there are few more accurate sayings than ‘People constantly show you who they are; we are just too busy to notice,’ conveying that counterparts are always providing information as to who they are, few careful or disciplined enough to mask their real thinking.

An effective diplomat might consider the early upbringing – much like that of Kissinger – that shapes a person’s character and behaviour, if not their worldview informing action.

Consider Donald J. Trump, learning right from wrong on the streets of New York City via the mentorship of lawyer Roy Cohn, who served as Chief Counsel to Joseph McCarthy while McCarthy prosecuted potential American communist sympathisers.

Cohn’s rules of life, work and play were as follows (these summarized by a friend well-acquainted with Cohn and his colleagues): ‘One, attack, attack, attack! Two, deny everything! Three, always claim victory!’ The logic of these three rules of life are readily understandable when considering the harsh New York realities within which Cohn and later Trump operated.

These considerations are overlooked, however, amid the onslaught of media which fails to consider what really shapes the character of a man or woman.

Curiosity, a critical mindset and self-restraint in the face of the human temptation to reach rapid and satisfying answers are here necessary, as part of figuring out what exactly is driving action.

A wise diplomat would pay particular attention to these pivotal factors – such as the influence of a long-standing mentor or advisor – as they might manifest in the present. This requires an intellectually honest and serious consideration of the worldview that shapes a counterpart, rather than considering superficial media commentary.

Third, a wise diplomat will maintain relations across a wide variety of networks, understanding that it is fine to talk with two or multiple individuals whose own relations are fractured (in fact, these strains in relations can be beneficial within diplomacy, the diplomat in this case able to play broker as he or she needs or wishes).

The maintenance of broad networks is vital, because this enables action under a wide array of potential circumstances, understanding that anything can happen (we are here reminded of Harold MacMillan’s saying “Events, dear boy, events!”) And a key lesson in diplomacy and in the cultivation of strategy is that, once crises unfold, it is the preparatory work in developing networks and alliances that counts; little new network-formation is possible afterwards.

The previous two points suggest that a wise diplomat will not pay too much attention to what is in the media, but will instead consider their own learning gleaned through in-person interactions with others, as well as the perspective of their most trusted contacts. Curiosity, a critical mindset and self-restraint in the face of the human temptation to reach rapid and satisfying answers are here necessary, as part of figuring out what exactly is driving action, and what can in turn be done to shape action in accordance with interests.

Finally, an effective diplomat will not try to play God, serving as the arbiter of right or wrong, adopting instead a more considered approach anticipating and responding to circumstances as they gradually or quickly evolve. Effective strategy requires an aloof approach (caring – but not caring too much), removing the self from a given situation so as not to allow natural human vices such as presumptiveness, arrogance or short-term self-interest to affect judgment.

And the American election bring with them a number of trade-offs, these to be weighed carefully by American citizens, as well as by diplomats and strategists in other countries. These trade-offs will be considered most effectively if approached with calmness – the aloof, even if cold-hearted, approach personified by Henry Kissinger.

In an age of catastrophising, emphasing emotion, it is easy to descend rapidly into despair, rather than consider action from a long-term perspective. Diplomacy and strategy require the latter, which will be a key to success for those who emerge effective in advancing their interests in the wake of the American elections.