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Narrated by James Marriott
One of the tragedies of Rory Stewart’s prematurely curtailed parliamentary career is that few men can ever have been so excited to enter the House of Commons. In his new book Politics on the Edge, Stewart enthuses that being an MP is “a privilege” and “an extraordinary vocation”. He imagines himself as “a classical hero”, a “Victorian gentleman” prepared to die for his country, a Roman senator clambering up the “cursus honorum” towards the consulship. He insists that he never wanted to be rich or famous but that he has dreamt since childhood of “public service”.
Stewart’s romantic conception of public service may be the most old-fashioned thing about him. It is true that Theresa May likes to talk in an honourable, rather grim-faced
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