There are many reasons to be concerned about the Foreign Office and the Department for International Development. But the solution is not, as the government proposes, to merge the two. The Foreign Office is in crisis. The UK spends on our core diplomatic staff half of what we spend on the winter fuel payments for […]
Streatham High Road was at first depressingly familiar. There was the same police tape, shaken witnesses, and forensic officers in their white crime scene suits that I had seen after the stabbings in Poplar and Seven Kings. But this time the attacker was a convicted terrorist, just released from prison. What did this say about […]
Zach Vertin: A rope from the Sky: the Making and Unmaking of the World’s newest state, 2019 Peter Martell: First Raise a Flag, 2018 The Government of South Sudan: South Sudan Development Plan, 2011-2013 “Realising freedom, equality, justice, peace and prosperity for all”, 2011 South Sudan is a real place which includes grasslands […]
Tomorrow was due to be the day of the London Mayoral election – when I would have learned whether London was prepared to elect me as an Independent Mayor. But it has been postponed because of Coronavirus for another year. The election will now take place in May 2021, and I have decided not to […]
Rory Stewart has just arrived at KFC in Barking. It’s day four of “campaigning proper”, as he puts it, for the Tory leadership. The International Development Secretary has chosen Barking because it is a no-deal Brexit enclave and he wants “to talk to Leave voters.” Margaret Thatcher did this, he says, hammering on doors with […]
Rory opened a House of Commons debate on World Immunisation Week in the House of Commons today. Watch it here:
Rory met with young farmers who have benefited from The Farmer Network’s Business Support Programme. Mr Stewart met with The Farmer Network’s Kate Gascoyne and farmers Georgia Smith, Lorna Craig and Mark Curr at the latter’s family farm at Newbiggin-on-Lune where lambing was in full swing. The Farmer Network has been running a Business Support […]
No-Deal is not a destination: it is a failure to reach a destination. And it would be perceived rightly – by our international partners and investors – as a signal failure of sense, statesmanship, and strategy. We would drop overnight into the margins of the world’s trading system. We would have left all the fundamental […]
Rory is delighted to launch The Reiver Ride – a journey through The Forgotten Lands to celebrate the rich Border Reiving history of the area. The Reiver Ride on Saturday, September 7th, is the first of what will become an annual event, with different routes every year. Riders are invited to choose between two routes […]
Rory is to unveil a plaque commemorating the site of the Lycée Francais, which relocated to Cumbria during the Second World War. The unveiling will take place at Another Place on Friday 1 March at 16:10pm, with speeches by Mr Stewart, Claudine Ripert, the Director of the French Institute and French Cultural Counsellor of the […]