Walking to the Top

Rory Stewart, @RoryStewartUK, is a Conservative MP going places, and this could be great news for local councils if he wants to take them with him. I went to meet him to find out where his latest journey is going History is littered with politicians who were destined for great things and high office but have fallen by the wayside. The question is whether the MP for Penrith and the Border, Rory Stewart, is to be any different to the litany of those who have been laid to waste. His reputation as a man of unnatural achievement depends a little on the increasing impact of his CV – the giddy rush of soldier-diplomat-adventurer-writer-politician. He was elected to Parliament in 2010, having already passed through many of the key institutions of the British establishment, including Eton College, the Army, Oxford University and the Foreign Office where he had stints working in the British embassies of Indonesia and Montenegro. He resigned from the Foreign Office in 2000 and then embarked on his next big ‘job’, that of walking across Asia – a journey that was to last two years. A series of treks took him to the rural districts of Pakistan, Iran, Afghanistan, India and Nepal, an expedition totalling around 6,000 miles, during which time he stayed in 500 different village houses. Continuing this passion for walking, his next feat was to journey across post-9/11 Afghanistan. This resulted in his first book, The Places in Between, which was highly praised by many, including the New York Times, which said it was a "flat-out masterpiece". He stepped back into politics after the invasion of Iraq in 2003, taking up the position of deputy governorate co-ordinator in Southern Iraq for the coalition forces, and wrote his second book, The Prince of Marshes, based on his experiences in this role. It too was critically acclaimed with The New York Times saying, "Stewart seems to be living one of the most remarkable lives on record”. But is there another side to all this internationalism? Well find out more from my interview in LCR magazine.