Rory Stewart talks to Toby Lichtig

From the former Conservative Cabinet minister and co-presenter of 2022’s hit podcast The Rest is Politics, a searing insider’s account of ten extraordinary years in Parliament. From 2010 to 2019, Rory Stewart went from being a political outsider to standing for prime minister – before resigning from a Conservative Party he barely recognised. Tackling ministerial briefs on flood response and prison violence, engaging with conflict and poverty abroad as a foreign minister, and Brexit as a Cabinet minister, Stewart learned first-hand how profoundly hollow and inadequate our democracy and government had become, with cronyism, ignorance and sheer incompetence running rampant. Stewart talks to TLS Fiction and Politics Editor Toby Lichtig.