Rory Stewart Again

[poliphilo]

We thought Rory Stewart was fed up with politics but it seems he's only fed up with party politics- as are we all- and now proposes to run for Mayor of London as an independent.

Ever since Stewart appeared on the scene I've felt he was an uncommon politician. He has had a career out of Kipling or Buchan- of the kind one might have thought impossible in the modern era. He has tutored princes, spent two years hiking through central Asia, written best selling travel books, administered provinces, defended a compound against militia men in Southern Iraq, smoked opium on the roof of the world and is not averse to hinting he was once a spy. For a while he was executive chairman of the wonderfully named Turquoise Mountain Foundation (which is one of Prince Charles's wizard wheezes). He looks unusual too- handsome in an extreme way that borders on ugliness with more than a hint of elf.

I think he's a straw in the wind.

Comments

[cmcmck]

I find the concept of a borders chap running the Great Wen a bit odd, but if he had the nerve to tell Londoners that their city isn't the entire country,who knows?

[poliphilo]

London is both nowhere and everywhere- and I don't suppose it matters much where it's ruler comes from.