Too many Politicians - too few Statesmen

Sep 16 2023 The Guardian

Boris Johnson an ‘egotistical chancer’, says Rory Stewart

Rory Stewart, the former international development secretary, and one half of the current affairs podcast, The Rest Is Politics, has written a new book; Politics on the Edge: A Memoir from Within.

Here is the review:

Politics on the Edge by Rory Stewart review – blistering insider portrait of a nation in decline

And here is his article in The Guardian:

‘I saw how grotesquely unqualified so many of us were’: Rory Stewart on his decade as a Tory MP

Here is one quote from his piece:

It was a culture that prized campaigning over careful governing, opinion polls over detailed policy debates, announcements over implementation. I felt we had collectively failed to respond adequately to every major challenge of the past 15 years. I realised this most starkly when I understood that many of my colleagues still did not know what a customs union was two and a half years after the Brexit votes. Many of the political decisions I had witnessed were rushed, flaky and poorly considered: the cuts to the military paired with the purchase of ruinously expensive aircraft carriers, the lurches in health policy, the privatisation of the probation services. The lack of mature judgment was palpable, the consequences frequently terrible.

*****

I still think that democracy is the worst form of government, except for all the others, but I do wish we had more Statesmen, and fewer politicians.