Rory stewart

On Tuesday, the former Conservative MP Rory Stewart won GQ’s Politician of the Year award. It was probably the best part of the week for Stewart, who has had the Conservative whip removed and been roundly mocked after posting a series of photographs on Twitter, in which his typical grinning selfie smile disappeared when he was next to one particular individual: https://twitter.com/RoryStewartUK/status/1167046610167181312 It was then revealed that Rory shares the modern affliction of caring deeply about his online presence, clearly liking one image on his website so much that he named it ‘best-pic.jpg’.

Rebel ex-Tory MPs are complaining of 'unconstitutional' treatment by their party and are planning to stand at the next election as Conservatives, I have learned. The MPs who lost the whip last night when they backed a motion to take control of the Order Paper were this morning told all their constituency data had been taken away from them, and that they must remove the Conservative logo from their websites, correspondence and so on. But despite this, a number of them want to say that they are Conservatives at the election, and are preparing for a dramatic legal battle with the party.

Remember #rorywalks? This was the hashtag created to follow the progress of Tory leadership candidate Rory Stewart as he travelled around Britain meeting people in places detached from mainstream politics. One encounter that sticks in my mind happened when he met a couple from east London, who told him that they wouldn’t start a family because their local area was too unsafe to bring a child into the world. Whether apocryphal or not, it is clear that there are parts of Britain where criminality and incivility has become normal, battering the morale of our most vulnerable citizens.

Rory Stewart’s pitch for prime minister seems strangely distant now, lost in the enveloping chaos of Boris Johnston’s shamble to glory. All is not lost, however. The divergent metrics of parliamentary and public sentiment – and the character deficits of the frontrunner, who claims to be able to square that circle – make it abundantly possible that Stewart will have another chance to shine before the year is out. So what should he be doing in the meantime? I was peripherally involved in Stewart's leadership campaign, helping to organise some of his Northern Ireland visit, including a trip to my home county (and Britain's true Lake District) Fermanagh.

Boris and his team made a mistake by agreeing to take part in Tuesday’s BBC leadership debate. In such decisions, candidates must be absolutely ruthless. It does not matter whether one is accused of ‘running away’ if one does not take part. The only question is, ‘Will going on X improve the candidate’s chances with the relevant electorate?’ The relevant electorate in the Tory leadership campaign is 1. MPs and 2. party members. Nobody else matters, except inasmuch as wider opinions affect those who vote. Boris could easily have reached MPs without going on the BBC debate. He can less easily reach party members, but even then, he can find more suitable platforms later.

With five candidates surviving Tuesday's ballot, the surprise result was Rory Stewart. The wildcard entry won 37 votes – with Sajid Javid behind on 33 votes. It follows that when it comes to who is most likely to be knocked out in this afternoon's ballot, it's the Home Secretary who ought to be the most vulnerable. However, Stewart is not home and dry. Although the DfID Secretary has been building momentum of late, he had a challenging appearance in the BBC debate – admitting after that it wasn't his preferred format. His Cabinet candidate rivals also turned on him at points – with both Michael Gove and Sajid Javid directly challenging him. Multiple messages from the Stewart camp to MPs soon after the second ballot have added to a sense of unease about his campaign.

With Boris Johnson having all but booked his place in the final two, the most interesting question of the Tory leadership contest right now is whether Rory Stewart can get the 33 votes he needs to get through the next round of voting. If he does, he makes it to Tuesday night’s BBC debate. At which point, Stewart would have the chance to take on Boris Johnson directly. Some, including former Downing Street staffers, think that this clash could even propel Stewart into the final two. But I think it could actually break Stewart’s momentum. Why, because a lot of Tory MPs fear too much blue-on-blue action and wouldn’t want the members round to turn into a no-holds-barred contest.

When Rory Stewart first announced his intention to enter the race to be the UK's next prime minister, he was seen by colleagues as having little to no chance of making it far in the leadership contest. Yet as the Parliamentary contest goes into its second week, Stewart is one of six contenders left standing and has today won a ministerial endorsement in the form of Tobias Ellwood. The Defence Minister had been backing Matt Hancock but after the Health Secretary bowed out on Friday, he will now back Stewart – praising the DfID Secretary's enthusiasm. This could become a recurring theme – Michael Gove, Sajid Javid and Jeremy Hunt had all hoped to pick up many of Hancock's supporters to help them in the next round yet a chunk are now considering backing Stewart instead.

Britain is not quite in the grip of Rorymania. He gave a properly impressive speech this week and he has spoken with honesty and clarity about politics and policy. But Rory Stewart isn’t going to be our next prime minister and it’s hard to see him remaining in Cabinet for much longer. He’s a hit on Twitter, but Twitter is not real life. Most voters still don’t know who he is. None of that means what Stewart has done during the Conservative leadership election is irrelevant or unimportant. He, like Matt Hancock, has run towards conversations about difficult and important things like social care when many of their colleagues have run away.

Rory Stewart has not exactly had the most orthodox of campaign strategies to become the next leader of the Conservative party. The dark horse of the leadership race has built up a cult following by heading out across the country, recording hand-held campaign videos and having conversations with various members of the public. And he decided to continue this trend of unorthodoxy once again today when he officially launched his leadership bid: in a small circus-tent in the Southbank in London. There, the international development secretary used his launch to put forward his vision for the United Kingdom. But it was Stewart’s view that the frontrunner Boris Johnson could not be trusted with the nuclear codes that garnered the most attention at the launch.

Will Rory Stewart still be in the Tory leadership race come Tuesday? The International Development Secretary is seen as the wildcard of the contest. Regarding at first as having little to no chance of becoming leader owing to his pro-deal position, the undeterred Tory MP has ran a rather creative campaign going on various walks and meet and greets with members of the public in a bid to convince members of Parliament to get behind his leadership bid. His efforts have garnered a lot of attention and endorsements from unlikely places. The problem is very few of those endorsements are coming from the Conservative parliamentary party that decides who makes it through the rounds – before the membership selecting from the final two.

The remarkable thing about the Tory leadership election is how long it has been coming. When Theresa May blew the party’s majority in the 2017 general election, few imagined that it would be two years before she quit as leader. What kept her in place was not a lack of Tory ruthlessness but a failure to agree on who should replace her. A lack of consensus is the defining feature of this contest. No candidate is pulling ahead in the endorsements, and no one has the backing of most of the cabinet. Instead, the race is as fractured as it is crowded. There are two sides to this election: full-on Brexit vs the cabinet. On the Brexit side, Boris Johnson is consolidating his position.

With just a few days to go until nominations close in the Tory leadership contest, candidates are busy trying to shore up support in the parliamentary party. There are five - Sam Gyimah, Andrea Leadsom, Rory Stewart, Mark Harper and Esther McVey - who currently don't have sufficient nominations to make it onto the ballot paper. Harper tried to get some attention by asking a question about the Peterborough by-election at today's Prime Minister's Questions, while Gyimah has been doing the rounds in Portcullis House as MPs have trundled through. Meanwhile I understand that Rory Stewart has cancelled all his media appearances in order to hold as many meetings as possible with MPs. Stewart's predicament is an interesting one.

What the hell has got into Rory Stewart? The man’s everywhere, outstretched phone in hand, like an Instagram influencer on the edge, asking people to come and talk to him about Brexit. He’s at the Lewisham market by the stinky fish! No wait – now he’s on a train to Wigan. Now he’s talking Dari in Barking; now he’s in Kew Gardens searching for a Brexiteer. But wait: he’s on the move again, chatting in a taxi! Then to Borough Market, filling the tiny screen with his distinctive features. He has more energy than the rest of his rivals put together, and is even making arch-careerist Boris Johnson look indifferent about the leadership contest.   This is all very smart.

Leavers only, please Sir: Your leading article (‘The end of May’, 25 May) correctly calls for the Conservative party to establish itself as ‘unequivocally the party of Brexit’. The meltdown at the EU elections confirmed this is now the only course of action open to it, if it wishes to survive. Conservative MPs should show they have finally woken up to reality. They need to send the membership two candidates with impeccable Leave credentials, and who are not in the current cabinet. Placing any Remain-tainted candidates on the shortlist would display MPs’ continuing contempt for the party’s activists, supporters and donors. It would also show a curious lack of interest in their own job security.

It’s one day since Theresa May set an exit date for her departure from 10 Downing Street and the leadership contest to replace her is already heating up. This morning, Rory Stewart - the International Development Secretary - performed a media round in which the Tory MP declared that he would not be able to serve in a Boris Johnson-led government. The reason? BoJo, the current favourite, would explicitly push for a no deal Brexit - something Stewart could not contemplate. Besides Stewart is planning to run himself. However, he is seen as an outside bet as someone who voted Remain and backs Theresa May’s deal. He has previously hit out at certain Brexiteers for - in his eyes - over-simplifying issues raised by Brexit.