On Cumbria

Cumbria valley

focusing on cumbria

I’m writing this after sitting up till 2.45am with 600 fellow MPs to vote on the budget. The speeches were remarkable more for their length than their content. And as the hours passed, tired politicians seemed to fall back, like old war horses, on familiar phrases: words like ‘challenge’, ‘opportunity’, ‘cuts’ and then – a […]

explaining cumbria to strangers

I am trying to find the words to describe our part of Cumbria to strangers. When an elegant London journalist arrived last week at my cottage in Bampton in a floral silk dress (which delighted the midges), I subject her to a lecture on Alston. I tried to explain Cumbria again this week in Westminster […]

question-time-panelqt

maiden speech

The following speech was made during a Westminster Hall debate on the Cumbrian Shootings, 23rd June 2010. I was not intending to make a maiden speech today, but I can think of no better example of what Parliament is about than the issue that Mr Reed has brought us. There is a precision, a compassion […]

first weekend back to cumbria

I am sitting on a low stool, upstairs in the Penrith Conservative Club, a week after my election. There are more than twenty people, seated in front of me and between them they’ve travelled almost a thousand miles to be there. I last sat beside Ray, on a hay bale in Rockcliffe; Joe and Ducan, […]

local voices

Parking charges (and parking provision more generally) and the building of super-markets – are explosive issues across Cumbria. There is an overwhelming demand from Penrith shop-keepers, for example, to turn the current abandoned supermarket site into free temporary parking.  Most shops are finding that trade is down.  Across Britain, from Perth to Devon, independent high […]

wigton – 13 feb and 14th jan

Saturday, 13 February – Wigton No shopper or businessman, whom I met was in favour of the parking charges in Wigton. Most shop-keepers – and I stopped in almost every shop  – felt that the charges were reducing their trade. I had talked with many of the same shop-keepers in Wigton on 14th January and […]

THE DIARY: RORY STEWART

Article first published in The Financial Times on 15 January 2010. For me the new decade began walking through powder snow under a full moon north of Hadrian’s Wall. Every field and footbridge in Cumbria lay under new powder and the moon, cast up by the ice crust, illuminated hills 20 miles away. Four hours […]

more thoughts on my walk through penrith & the border

  January 1st. I can imagine no better way of beginning the new decade than this: walking past Askerton over a broad snow field, under a full moon. I had ended the old year with a dance at Caldbeck village hall on the 29th . I was beyond Brough on the 30th. and saw in […]

MY LONG MARCH TO BE A TORY MP IN CUMBRIA

I am unpacking again in my cottage in Dufton in the Pennines. The backpack and most of its contents have been with me for 10 years. The boots crossed 3,000 miles before the waterproofing frayed. The down-jacket has served as my pillow in 500 different village houses between Turkey and Bangladesh and smells like it. […]