Rory Stewart
Roderick James Nugent Stewart OBE FRSGS FRSL (born 3 January 1973), known as Rory Stewart, is a British academic, broadcaster, and former diplomat and politician. He served as a Conservative Member of Parliament (MP) for Penrith and The Border from 2010 to 2019 and was a junior minister in four government departments from 2015 to 2019, before serving as Secretary of State for International Development from May to July 2019. In October 2019, he announced that he had resigned from the Conservative Party.
For the Scottish squash player, see Rory Stewart (squash player).
Rory Stewart
Theresa May
Theresa May
Theresa May
Theresa May
Harriett Baldwin
Independent (from 2019)
- Labour (before 1993)
- Conservative (2009–2019)
2
Brian Stewart (father)
1991–1992
Second Lieutenant (on probation)
Born in Hong Kong, Stewart was educated at the Dragon School, Eton College, and the University of Oxford as an undergraduate student of Balliol College, Oxford. Stewart worked for Her Majesty's Diplomatic Service as a diplomat in Indonesia and as British Representative to Montenegro. He left the diplomatic service to undertake a two-year walk across Afghanistan, Iran, Pakistan, India, and Nepal. He later wrote a best-selling book, The Places in Between, about his experiences. He subsequently served as Deputy Governor in Maysan and Dhi Qar for the Coalition Provisional Authority following the 2003 invasion of Iraq and wrote a second book covering this period, Occupational Hazards or The Prince of the Marshes. In 2005, he moved to Kabul to establish and run the Turquoise Mountain Foundation. He was the Ryan Family Professor of Human Rights and the director of the Carr Center for Human Rights Policy at Harvard University from 2008 to 2010.
In 2010, Stewart was elected to the House of Commons and in 2014 was elected chair of the Defence Select Committee. He served under David Cameron as Minister for the Environment from 2015 to 2016. He was a minister throughout Theresa May’s government: as Minister of State for International Development, Minister of State for Africa, and Minister of State for Prisons. He ultimately joined the Cabinet and National Security Council as Secretary of State for International Development.
After May resigned, Stewart stood as a candidate to be Leader of the Conservative Party and Prime Minister of the United Kingdom in the 2019 leadership contest. His campaign was defined by his unorthodox use of social media and opposition to a no-deal Brexit. He stated at the beginning of his campaign that he would not serve under Boris Johnson. When Johnson became prime minister in July 2019, Stewart resigned from the cabinet.
On 3 September 2019, Stewart had the Conservative Whip removed after voting to back a motion paving the way for a law seeking to delay the UK's exit date from the European Union. On 3 October 2019, Stewart announced he had resigned from the Conservative Party and that he would stand down as an MP at the general election. He initially announced that he would stand as an independent candidate in the 2021 London mayoral election but withdrew on 6 May 2020 on the grounds of the election being postponed on account of the COVID-19 pandemic. His career in politics is described in his bestselling memoir Politics on the Edge (published in the US as How Not to Be a Politician).
Stewart was the President of GiveDirectly from 2022 to 2023, and was a visiting fellow at Yale Jackson from 2020 to 2022, teaching politics and international relations. In March 2022, Stewart and Alastair Campbell launched The Rest Is Politics podcast, which has topped politics podcast ratings in the UK most weeks.[1][2] He is the Brady-Johnson Professor of the Practice of Grand Strategy at Yale University's Jackson School of Global Affairs.
Early life and education[edit]
Stewart was born in Hong Kong, then under British rule, the son of Brian Stewart and his wife, Sally Elizabeth Acland Nugent (née Rose).[3] His family is from Broich House (built in 1770), near Crieff in Perth and Kinross, Scotland.[4] Stewart's father, born in Edinburgh, Scotland, was a colonial official and diplomat who, in the 1970s, was reportedly a candidate to become the Chief of the UK's Secret Intelligence Service or MI6.[5] Stewart's maternal grandfather was Jewish.[6] His younger sister has Down syndrome.[7]
Stewart spent his early years in South Kensington, London[8] before his family moved to Malaysia and then back to Hong Kong. He returned to Britain for boarding school from Malaysia at the age of 8, being educated at the Dragon School, in Oxford, and Eton College.[5] He was taught martial arts and fencing by his father in Hyde Park.[8] As a teenager, he was a member of the Labour Party.[9][10][11] During his gap year in 1991, he served a short service limited commission in the Black Watch for five months as second lieutenant on probation.[12][13] He was taught medieval history by Maurice Keen and philosophy, politics and economics (PPE) by Jonathan Barnes at the University of Oxford as a student of Balliol College, Oxford.[5] While a student at Oxford, Stewart was a private tutor to Prince William and Prince Harry during the summer.[5] He attended a single meeting of the Bullingdon Club[14] before resigning after witnessing the behaviour of other members.[8]
Diplomatic career[edit]
Indonesia and Montenegro[edit]
After graduating, Stewart joined the Foreign Office.[3][15] In Indonesia, he served as the Political & Economic Second Secretary in the British embassy in Jakarta from 1997 to 1999, during the Asian Financial Crisis and the fall of Suharto, working on issues related to East Timor independence. He was appointed at the age of 26 as the British Representative to Montenegro in the wake of the Kosovo campaign.[5]
Some have suggested that Stewart was an employee of the Secret Intelligence Service (MI6) during his time as a British Representative to Montenegro – allegedly being recruited to MI6 shortly after he graduated from the University of Oxford.[5][16] Stewart has said that his career progression and his father's work for MI6 might "give the appearance" that he worked for MI6,[17] but says he did not work for MI6 while a diplomat.[16] Stewart has acknowledged that due to the Official Secrets Act, even if he had worked for MI6, he would not be able to admit it.[18]
Iraq[edit]
Following the 2003 invasion of Iraq, Stewart was appointed as the Coalition Provisional Authority Deputy Governorate Co-ordinator in Maysan and Deputy Governorate Co-ordinator/Senior Advisor in Dhi Qar in 2003, both of which are provinces in southern Iraq.[5] He was posted initially to the KOSB Battlegroup then to the Light Infantry.[19] His responsibilities included holding elections, resolving tribal disputes, and implementing development projects.[19] He faced growing unrest and an incipient civil war from his base in a Civil-Military Co-operation (CIMIC) compound in Al Amarah, and in May 2004 was in command of his compound in Nasiriyah when it was besieged by Sadrist Movement militia.[5] He was appointed an Officer of the Order of the British Empire (OBE) for his services during this period.[20] While Stewart initially supported the Iraq War, the international coalition's inability to achieve a more humane, prosperous state led him in retrospect to believe the invasion had been a mistake.[21]
Academic, nonprofit, and advisory work[edit]
Non-profit work[edit]
In late 2005, Stewart set up the Turquoise Mountain Foundation, in Afghanistan, a human development NGO established by King Charles III, and Hamid Karzai.[54] For this role he relocated to Kabul for the next three years, working to restore historic buildings in its old city, managing its finances, installing water supply, electricity, and establishing a clinic, a school and an institute for traditional crafts.[5] Stewart stepped down as executive chairman of the Turquoise Mountain Foundation in May 2010.[55] Stewart also served for a time on the board of governors of the International Development Research Centre of Canada.[56]
In 2021 Stewart and his family moved to Jordan for two years to work for the Turquoise Mountain Foundation, setting up a project to restore a Roman site near the Golan Heights to create employment in the area. During this time, Stewart would also be travelling to Yale University for lecture commitments.[7]
In August 2022, GiveDirectly announced that Stewart would be president of the organization.[57][58]
Academic and policy work[edit]
In July 2008, Stewart was appointed to the faculty of the John F. Kennedy School of Government as Ryan Family Professor of Human Rights at Harvard University and director of the Carr Center for Human Rights Policy,[5] having previously been a fellow at the Carr Center from 2004 to 2005.[5] He left his position to campaign for Parliament.[59] He returned to academia as a Senior Fellow at Yale University's Jackson Institute in 2020.[60]
Stewart has frequently been called on to provide advice on Afghanistan and Iraq to policy-makers, particularly in the United States, United Kingdom and Canada.[5] In an article in The Daily Telegraph, he was described as an advisor on Afghan issues to U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and the U.S. Special Envoy for Afghanistan and Pakistan Richard Holbrooke.[61] In 2009, he appeared before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, arguing that Obama's strategy on Afghanistan was 'trying to do the impossible'. He suggested, in an argument that he would later expand in his Ted Talk, that a heavy American military footprint would be counterproductive, alienating Afghans, and that it would be better to reduce the size of the American Army in Afghanistan. This smaller force, he suggested, would be able to handle al-Qaeda, while helping achieve the West's long-term objectives in the country.[62] His ideas were rejected by senators, including future Secretary of State John Kerry.[62] He also briefed Gordon Brown and David Miliband.[63]
In September 2020, he became a fellow at Yale University's Jackson Institute for Global Affairs, teaching politics, grand strategy and international relations to undergraduate and graduate students.[64][65]
In January 2024 he became the inaugural Brady Johnson professor of the practice of Grand Strategy at Yale University's Yale Jackson School of Global Affairs[66]
On 7 February 2024, The Daily Telegraph reported that Stewart had emerged as a possible candidate in the 2024 University of Oxford Chancellor election.[67]
Conservative Party leadership election[edit]
Stewart was a candidate in the 2019 Conservative leadership election, announcing his intention to stand in an interview in The Times.[155][156] His candidacy was not initially taken seriously, with a piece in the New Statesman's diary stating that he had a single supporter: himself.[157] As The Guardian noted: "his campaign benefited at the start from low expectations, and for days leading up to the first vote his tally of supporters was in single figures. When he met the threshold he looked like the insurgent because so many had assumed he would be knocked out".[158]
Adopting an unconventional campaigning style, Stewart did not focus his attention on Westminster but, instead, went on a series of filmed walkabouts (dubbed 'RoryWalks'), which saw him take to the streets of Britain, talking to voters, to understand their priorities and concerns. These were then uploaded onto social media, with significant success.[159]
On 29 May, Stewart admitted he had smoked opium during a wedding in Iran.[160] Several other candidates admitted to previous illegal drug use during the election.[161]
On 1 June, Kenneth Clarke was announced as one of Stewart's MP backers, with other supporters including David Lidington, David Gauke, Nicholas Soames, Tobias Ellwood, Gillian Keegan and Victoria Prentis.[162] Against expectations, on 13 June he made it through the first parliamentary ballot, gaining 19 votes, two more than the elimination threshold.[163] On 16 June, he appeared, as one of the six remaining candidates, in a televised debate on Channel 4.[164] He was widely judged to have won the debate, with Michael Deacon writing in The Daily Telegraph that "If you were to judge it by the response of the studio audience, Channel 4's debate had only one winner. Rory Stewart got more rounds of applause than any other candidate – and, at the end, when each took turns to sum up, he was the only candidate to get a round of applause at all".[165]
On 18 June 2019, he also made it through the second parliamentary ballot, with 37 votes from a threshold of 33, surpassing Home Secretary Sajid Javid by four votes; however, following a lacklustre performance in that evening's BBC debate, he polled just 27 votes in the next day's ballot and was eliminated as the last-placed candidate.[166][167] It was revealed on the same day that Stewart was in talks with Michael Gove to stop Boris Johnson becoming Prime Minister.[168] However, in his podcast with co-host Alastair Campbell, Stewart claimed that Gove was intentionally wasting his time in order to better position Boris Johnson in the leadership race.[169]
Personal life[edit]
In 2012, Stewart married American Shoshana Clark, a former employee.[201][202] Their first child, a son, was born in November 2014, whom Stewart delivered in the absence of medical assistance.[203] Their second son was born in April 2017.[204][205][8]
Stewart lives in South Kensington, London[8][206][207] as well as Dufton, Cumbria.[208] He is a member of the Athenaeum Club and the Special Forces Club.[14] He is said to be proficient in 11 languages, though he claims to be 'mediocre' in several of them.[8] From 2021 to 2023, Stewart and his family lived in Jordan while he worked on a Turquoise Mountain Foundation project.[7]