Rory Stewart
Rory Stewart
Roderick James Nugent 'Rory' Stewart, OBE, FRSLis a British academic, author, diplomat, documentary maker and Conservative politician currently serving as a Minister of State at the Department for International Development. He is a former Chair of the House of Commons Defence Select Committee. Since May 2010, he has been the Member of Parliament for Penrith and The Border, in the county of Cumbria, North West England...
NationalityBritish
ProfessionPolitician
Date of Birth3 January 1973
differ interests learn ourselves position scotland society
The thing that interests me most about Scotland is how we differ from our neighbours. How do our ambitions differ? What kind of society are we? What can we learn from the mistakes of the past, and how do we position ourselves in the world?
bit tory
It was a bit of a surprise when I became a Tory MP. My friends said it was a stupid idea.
fixing stuff
I did stuff for three years in Kabul that I found exciting, and a lot of that was fixing roofs, talking about sewage installation.
bit
Being a backbench MP is a bit of an anti-climax for a superhero.
good walked
I'm not good at explaining why I walked across Afghanistan.
family love
I want to 'normalise' myself. I would love to have a family.
connecting connects interested places
I like connecting to places by foot, and I'm interested in experiencing how somewhere like Crieff connects to somewhere like London.
asia notions romantic
I had a lot of romantic notions about what it would mean to cross Asia by foot.
british decent embassy main people single
In the British embassy in Afghanistan in 2008, an embassy of 350 people, there were only three people who could speak Dari, the main language of Afghanistan, at a decent level. And there was not a single Pashto speaker.
democracy dignity equality government individual matters reflects
Democracy matters because it reflects an idea of equality and an idea of liberty. It reflects an idea of dignity, the dignity of the individual, the idea that each individual should have an equal vote, an equal say, in the formation of their government.
bankers nobody power truth
The politicians think the journalists have power, the journalists think bankers have power, bankers think lawyers have power. The truth is, nobody has power.
active allow engagement informed local needs public
For politicians to be honest, the public needs to allow them to be honest, and the media, which mediates between the politicians and the public, needs to allow those politicians to be honest. If local democracy is to flourish, it is about the active and informed engagement of every citizen.
doctorate somebody
When you're doing mountain rescue, you don't take a doctorate in mountain rescue; you look for somebody who knows the terrain. It's about context.
history organic romantic
In some sense, I'm a romantic. I like the idea of organic history and tradition.