From a great writer--legendary for his expeditions into some of the
world's most forbidding places--a wise, honest, and sometimes absurdist
memoir of a most remarkable journey through British politics at the
breaking point
Rory Stewart was an unlikely politician. He was best known for his
two-year walk across Asia--in which he crossed Afghanistan, essentially
solo, in the months after 9/11--and for his service, as a diplomat in
Iraq, and Afghanistan. But in 2009, he abandoned his chair at Harvard
University to stand for a seat in Parliament, representing the
communities and farms of the Lake District and the Scottish border--one
of the most isolated and beautiful districts in England. He ran as a
Conservative, though he had no prior connection to the politics and
there was much about the party that he disagreed with.
How Not to Be a Politician is a candid and penetrating examination of
life on the ground as a politician in an age of shallow populism, when
every hard problem has a solution that's simple, appealing, and wrong.
While undauntedly optimistic about what a public servant can accomplish
in the lives of his constituents, the book is also a pitiless insider's
exposé of the game of politics at the highest level, often shocking in
its displays of rampant cynicism, ignorance, glibness, and sheer
incompetence. Stewart witnesses Britain's vote to leave the European
Union and its descent into political civil war, compounded by the bad
faith of his party's leaders--David Cameron, Boris Johnson, and Liz
Truss.
Finally, after nine years of service and six ministerial roles, and
shocked by his party's lurch to the populist right, Stewart ran for
prime minister. Stewart's campaign took him into the lead in the opinion
polls, head-to-head against Boris Johnson. How Not to Be a Politician
is his effort to make sense of it all, including what has happened to
politics in Britain and the world and how we can fix it. The view into
democracy's dark heart is troubling, but at every turn Stewart also
finds allies and ways to make a difference. A bracing, invigorating mix
of irony and love infuses How Not to Be a Politician. This is one of
the most revealing memoirs written by a politician in living memory.
