Rory Stewart: ‘People are much nicer to me in the streets now than they were when I was a politician’

The former prisons minister on the state of Britain's jails, the Conservative Party in-fighting and the need for seriousness

'We’re losing a sense of moral values and unwritten rules,' says Rory Stewart
'We’re losing a sense of moral values and unwritten rules,' says Rory Stewart Credit: Andrew Crowley

For 16 months between 2018 and 2019 Rory Stewart was prisons minister, in what he calls “the most shocking, but also the most interesting and fulfilling job that I ever did in government”. It was the fourth out of five ministerial posts he held in just three years, amid the chaos of Conservative Party leadership changes, cabinet resignations and reshuffles.

Stewart was ultimately on the losing side of a vicious Tory civil war, and did not return to government after losing the race to replace Theresa May, refusing to serve in Boris Johnson’s cabinet and eventually being kicked out of the Conservative Party alongside a group of MPs battling to prevent a no-deal Brexit.

Now, four years after leaving Parliament, Stewart’s mind has turned back to Britain’s prisons. On Wednesday November 22 at Church House in Westminster, he will deliver the annual Longford Lecture on prison reform, laying out the difference, as he sees it, between “rhetoric and reality”. He believes that prisons are not just vitally important institutions for public safety, but also a “clear litmus test of whether or not you’ve got healthy politics”.

By that measure, there is a serious problem. Jails are overcrowded to the extent that the Government has been cramming two inmates in Victorian cells designed for one, putting them in portacabins, releasing some early and even considering renting prison space abroad. The alleged escape of Daniel Khalife, a prisoner accused of terror offences, from HMP Wandsworth in September sparked national alarm, and Stewart says the extraordinary incident was “not a one-off”.

Recalling his period as prisons minister, he says: “We had escapes which were completely ridiculous. A prisoner climbed over a wall in the yard in full view of everybody when, according to one of my staff, it would have been perfectly possible just to grab his ankles and pull him down. This is all part of professionalism and standards.”

Stewart also sees those two things lacking from the current Government, where Rishi Sunak’s cabinet reshuffle risks a fresh Tory civil war, mere months before a general election the party looks set to lose. As we meet in the Kensington townhouse he shares with his wife and two sons, Ivo, six, and Sasha, nine, Stewart is still finding his feet as an onlooker, rather than participant, in the unfolding political drama.

Exiting Parliament after the 2019 general election was “very bewildering and traumatising”, he says. “I passionately believed that the Conservative Party was going in the wrong direction and I put a lot of energy into trying to stop it, and I failed. 

“I was very, very, very worried by the kind of government that I saw come in, and the direction I thought Britain was going in. So that was a real humiliation, and it took me months really to come through that.”

Stewart remains a political animal, but one who now articulates his vision outside Parliament. He has poured his reflections into his latest book, Politics on the Edge, and a regular podcast, The Rest is Politics, with former Labour Party spin doctor Alastair Campbell, which he believes is “much bigger than anything I did as a politician”.

Stewart with Alastair Campbell – he believes their podcast is ‘much bigger than anything he did as a politician’ Credit: Jamie Lucas

For the past year-and-a-half he has been living in Jordan, working on the Turquoise Mountain Foundation, the charity his wife Shoshana, a former physics teacher from upstate New York, runs. The couple met through the charity in 2006, after Stewart was sent to Afghanistan at the personal request of the then Prince Charles to set it up, and Shoshana arrived as a volunteer. They married six years later and continue to work as a close team. “Shoshana was absolutely the backbone for everything that I did and in politics,” Stewart says. “She helped me write my manifesto when I was running to be prime minister, she organised my entire campaign team and I feel really, really lucky to have that partnership.”

The couple’s drawing room is filled with work by the craftspeople the charity supports in the Middle East and Asia, from ornate wooden tables to coasters and mirrors. Other parts of the house are stuffed with family photos and books. A History of Portugal and the Portuguese Empire sits beside the downstairs loo, off a corridor lined with tiny jackets and shoes.

The family moved back to London from Amman a few weeks ago and Stewart is adjusting back to British life, and the weather, wearing a snug zip-up cardigan under his suit jacket. It is the second week of November, but the Christmas tree is already up, with a golden Big Ben decoration dangling alongside snow globes and a shiny classic car. Asked who is responsible for the early festive display, Stewart laughs: “I try to blame the boys, but the truth of the matter is it’s really me.”

Stewart says his wife Shoshana was the 'absolutely the backbone for everything that he did’ Credit: Isabel Infantes/PA

Aside from the festive cheer, Stewart is a very serious person, and quite happy to be. He believes a “lack of seriousness in the way that we approach things” is causing Britain’s institutions to crumble. “It’s very unfashionable to be serious,” he says. “Everything becomes a game or joke. We’re losing a sense of moral values and unwritten rules.”

Stewart points to prisons as a victim of the political prevailing wind, saying they have been starved of the “tough, long, patient work” needed by politicians in favour of “tough on crime” rhetoric and headline-grabbing reactions to shocking cases. He blames the governments of Boris Johnson, Liz Truss and now Rishi Sunak for worsening the situation by “playing to a political base” rather than following the evidence.

In one of their last acts at the Ministry of Justice in 2019, he and the former justice secretary David Gauke called for the scrapping of short prison sentences of under six months. The department had conducted research that Stewart says showed that “putting people in prison for a short period increases the danger to the public” and worsens reoffending. “It’s long enough to disrupt a person’s life – losing their housing, losing their job, if they’ve got one – but it’s not remotely long enough to do any decent work on rehabilitation or education. This is the worst of all worlds.” But when he made the call to replace short sentences with enhanced community alternatives, Stewart says fellow Tory MPs branded him a “lunatic”, and when Johnson became prime minister months later the plans were scrapped.

Stewart describes ministers as 'at best' being 'performing monkeys who’ve memorised a script' Credit: Andrew Crowley

Last month, there was a sense of déjà vu. On October 16, current current Justice Secretary Alex Chalk stood up in the House of Commons and announced the Government would “legislate for a presumption that custodial sentences of less than 12 months in prison will be suspended”. He told MPs that “too often the circumstances that lead to an initial offence are exacerbated by a short stint in prison”, and more than half the offenders released after less than a year reoffend. “The taxpayer should not be forking out for a system that risks further criminalising offenders and trapping them in a merry-go-round of short sentences,” Chalk added.

Stewart says it is “very frustrating” to see the proposals revived four years after he brought them forward. His legacy as prisons minister has been somewhat overlooked amid the many and varied roles he has taken up through his life. Being born in Hong Kong as the son of an MI6 officer was an exciting head start, with his childhood split between London, Scotland and boarding at Oxford’s Dragon School. His path onwards to Eton and Oxford University, where he became a private tutor to Prince William and Harry, may be well-trodden by Tory MPs, but Stewart’s adventures afterwards are unique.

In a career so extraordinary that Brad Pitt once bought the film rights to it, he became a soldier and then a diplomat, serving in Indonesia, Montenegro and Iraq, where his service as deputy governor of two volatile provinces saw him made an OBE. Stewart’s idea of a break was walking thousands of miles through brutal terrain and treacherous territories. He recounted his 2002 trek through Afghanistan in a bestselling book, The Places In Between, while his exploits in Iraq were documented in The Prince of the Marshes.

Stewart added yet another role to his CV by becoming a Harvard University academic in 2008, before taking his first step into politics by joining the Conservatives the following year. But the 50-year-old is no longer the optimistic new MP returned by Penrith and the Border in 2010. Battered by the political dramas and defeats of the past 13 years, Stewart has concluded that British institutions are “collapsing” and that Parliament itself is the “worst example of all”.

His solution is somewhat revolutionary. Stewart would replace the current voting system with a proportional one in order to “break the death grip” of the Conservative and Labour parties. He would also make ministers undergo formal training for their post, because the “completely mad” current ministerial system leaves government departments in the charge of “rank amateurs who know nothing about what they’re doing”, with “incredibly harmful” consequences. “At best, ministers are performing monkeys who’ve memorised a script,” he adds. “Politics has become careerist to an extent that you can’t imagine.”

Stewart is contemptuous of what he calls “politics by press release” and says there is “literally no patience for having long, serious conversations about whether you’re doing the right thing”. He feels the revelations coming out of the Covid inquiry are lending weight to his own “obsessive complaining” about the state of British politics: “I finally feel that I can point to this and say: ‘Look, this is what I’m talking about; look at this. These people should never have been allowed in charge of these things.’”

Some praise is afforded to the current Prime Minister for sacking Suella Braverman, with Stewart saying it was the “right thing to do” in light of the former home secretary’s inflammatory rhetoric and policy positions. “By bringing in David Cameron, [Sunak] has done something politically very smart,” Stewart adds. “He’s shifted the focus away from Braverman and her martyrdom, but I think the Conservative Party remains a pretty fractured coalition.”

Stewart predicts that Right-wing Tories could take an “opportunity to move against” the Prime Minister, but that “nobody will think it’s sensible to topple him when there’s barely a year to an election”. Asked whether Sunak’s attempt to stamp his authority on the Conservative Party could improve its prospects, Stewart says the chance of defeat has “shifted from 95 per cent to 92 per cent”. “The chances are still very high that the party will go into opposition, swing to the Right, and find itself ever more stuck in a position from which it can’t win elections,” he adds. “The Conservatives will then have to come back to the centre. It’s likely to be a decade-long process before they can govern again.”

Stewart during his time as prisons minister – he’s considering entering another mayoral race Credit: Stefan Rousseau/PA Wire

But Stewart does not rule out rejoining the party, if it becomes “careful, thoughtful, moderate, restrained”. “If I could find a chance to re-engage with a Conservative Party that echoed those values, I would be much more comfortable there than I am with Labour,” he says. For the moment, he has no immediate political ambitions, despite “looking very seriously” at entering another mayoral race after aborting his run as an independent in the last London elections.

“I have thought about getting back into politics in different ways but it’s very difficult in this electoral system,” Stewart adds. “And politics is pretty horrible – you’re under assault all the time, you’re paranoid about what the headline is in every newspaper. People are much nicer to me in the streets now than they were when I was a politician.” Stewart says he currently gets recognised more frequently than when he was an MP. “Now it’s people stopping me on the Tube and saying, ‘Rory, why don’t you get back into politics?’ or ‘we wish you were prime minister’, which of course, is a nicer thing than saying, ‘you’re rubbish’,” he says.

Given that Stewart did attempt to become prime minister in 2019, the point is slightly galling. “It’s very difficult to equal the sense of purpose that you can find when politics is going well, when you really feel that you’re contributing – even in a small way – to making things better in the country,” he says. “I feel very blessed in the sense that I’ve got much more time to read and think, and much more time to see my family. But although my life is now much more comfortable in every way, I miss that sense of daily purpose.”


The Longford Lecture is on Wednesday November 22 at Church House, Westminster at 6.30pm. Tickets are sold out, but to watch the livestream go to longfordtrust.org