Long before I was a politician, I monitored – as a diplomat – two elections in Indonesia, and ran a polling station for the first post-Saddam elections in Iraq. Later, again on behalf of Britain, I helped define the conditions for an election in Zimbabwe, funded grass-roots movements in Pakistan, parliamentary mentoring in Burma, and […]
Article first published in the Cumberland & Westmorland Herald on 1 December 2017 When I lived outside Britain, I felt that the greatest problem in Britain was injustice. Once I became a ‘parliamentary candidate’ I began to feel that the problem was that government was completely out of touch with reality on the ground, and […]
It is a privilege to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Betts. In 2003, George W. Bush, making his State of the Union address, provided one of the great optimistic statements about democracy. He said that because democracies respect their own people and their neighbours, freedom would bring peace. At that period, 14 or 15 years […]
My father died just over a year ago. I dreamt about him last night. Thinking about him, I’m reminded of two things today: first, that he loved me; and second, that he was – to put it mildly – puzzled by my choice of profession. He never saw the point of parliament, which he thought […]
As the 800th anniversary of the Magna Carta approaches, Rory Stewart is supporting the government’s initiative to set up a consultation into our democratic system and how we can develop it, and has written to all secondary schools in Penrith and The Border to encourage them to get involved in debating the future of British […]