Rory Stewart is a diplomat, author, explorer, academic, and politician – serving in successive Conservative governments in four departments as a Minister, Minister of State and in the cabinet as a Secretary of State. Rory was formally a Professor at Harvard and is now the Brady-Johnson Professor of the Practice... Read more
Rory Stewart is a diplomat, author, explorer, academic, and politician – serving in successive Conservative governments in four departments as a Minister, Minister of State and in the cabinet as a Secretary of State. Rory was formally a Professor at Harvard and is now the Brady-Johnson Professor of the Practice of Grand Strategy at Yale University, where he teaches politics and international relations.
His latest award-winning book Politics at the Edge was the number one Sunday Times bestseller for ten weeks. In this book, he shares his story of the challenges, absurdities and realities of political life. He is also the author of the New York Times bestseller The Places in Between, Occupational Hazards or The Prince of the Marshes, Can Intervention Work?; and The Marches.
He is the Co-Host of hugely successful podcast, The Rest is Politics, alongside Alastair Campbell – in which they speak from across the political divide, ‘disagreeing agreeably’ over big-hitting subjects and lifting the lid on the secrets of Westminster.
Rory has been described by the New York Times as “living one of the most remarkable lives on record.” Named by Esquire magazine as “one of the 100 most influential people of the 21st century”, Rory was the first man to walk across Afghanistan after the US-UK invasion, and served as a British Diplomat in Asia and Europe and the Middle East including as the Deputy Governor of two Iraqi provinces at the age of 29. An award-winning writer and documentary maker, he has advised the US and British Governments on their Afghanistan and Middle East policy.
As David Cameron’s Minister for the Environment he led on bio-diversity, nature protection, water management and flooding. As Theresa May’s Minister of State for International Development in Asian he worked particularly closely on India, Pakistan, Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Nepal, and Myanmar. A further promotion followed in which Rory took over responsibility for the Foreign Office for Africa, where he was the driving force behind a renewed Africa strategy. He then managed Britain’s prison and probation system – successfully leading the drive to address a crisis of violence in the prison system. He was promoted to cabinet as the Secretary of State for International Development, in which he doubled the UK’s spending on climate change. Following Theresa May’s resignation he ran to be Prime-Minister against Boris Johnson, fighting against a hard Brexit. After Johnson’s eventual success, Rory resigned from the Conservative party and sat as an independent MP.