Did we learn anything from rory stewart’s flight of icarus? | thearticle

Like some gorgeous and exotic butterfly, Rory Stewart briefly astonished Westminster and then was gone. He has promised to continue his efforts to embrace parts of the electorate that other

Tories cannot reach — but he may now have to do so from the back benches. What, if anything, did the Conservative Party and the rest of the country learn from Rory’s flight of Icarus? His

rivals were full of praise for the vigour and freshness of his campaign, with the notable exception of Boris Johnson. The premier-in-waiting might well look askance at the impertinence of

the Stewart insurgency. Not only had this unwelcome distraction drawn unwelcome attention to the fact that Boris is not the only Eton-and-Balliol alumnus with prime ministerial ambitions,

but his style of guerrilla warfare had successfully blunted the impact of the Johnsonian strategy of shock and awe. Not only has Rory Stewart danced on social media like a butterfly — he has

also shown that he can sting the big beasts like a bee. Opinion polls confirm that large sections of the public liked his off-the-wall approach. They warmed to his insistence on straight

answers to questions about how Brexit will be delivered and how Britain will be governed. Even more important, Rory Stewart has shown that in order to be popular, a politician does not need

to indulge in populism. In Europe, that faraway place of which we know nothing but to which we nevertheless belong, they see Boris Johnson as the British version of a “populist”. In the

Continental media he is lumped in not only with Nigel Farage — which would be bad enough — but with the likes of Marine Le Pen, Matteo Salvini and Viktor Orbàn. On this side of the English

Channel we don’t see Boris quite like that. To us, he is an amiable buffoon, a practitioner of classical prose and Churchillian pose, who turned out to be an excellent Mayor of London —

particularly by comparison with his Labour predecessor and successor. He might even prove a rather decent Prime Minister. What Rory Stewart has demonstrated, however, is that elites do not

have to disguise their elitism in order to make a positive impact. It’s partly a matter of class; this is Britain, after all. Rory isn’t royalty (he was briefly a Royal tutor) but that he is

posh is undeniable. He doesn’t merely talk the talk, he’s walked the walk, too, from Herat to Kabul and The Places in Between (the title of his travelogue). He’s governed a province in Iraq

and founded a charity in Afghanistan. He may or may not have been “in intelligence”, but he has indubitably written intelligent books. More importantly, he is not ashamed of being a toff.

He makes a virtue of it. This is not virtue-signalling, just old-fashioned courtesy. Noblesse oblige is not obligatory among the privileged, but it is always nice to see it put into

practice. The voters reckon all MPs are privileged anyway, whatever their backgrounds. As Kemi Badenoch points out in The Times today, female MPs get full salaries while on maternity leave,

plus an office allowance of £150,000 to help cover their absence — and it’s still not enough for Stella Creasy and other MPs, who are demanding more. “I would find it hard to claim to a

constituent on the minimum wage that I have a bad deal,” Ms Badenoch admits. Rory Stewart gets it. He understands that many members of the public see MPs as unrepresentative. But he, too,

has a lot to learn. He has been forced to realise how much people resent their taxes being frittered away — not least by DIFD, the ministry he now heads. He has only just been promoted into

the Cabinet and he needs to show that he can run a department. If you don’t master your brief, Secretary of State, the Sir Humphreys will take over — and maybe brief against you, too. Ask

Boris. Rory Stewart will surely be back. Let’s hope he is a little older, wiser and less bumptious by the time he makes another bid for the top job. His father was number two at MI6. The son

thinks he’s good enough to be number one at Number Ten. If Alexander Boris de Pfeffel Johnson blows his chance, Roderick James Nugent “Rory” Stewart may get another shot at it. But let him

stick at something first. The political world has been shaken, but not yet stirred