“There is a constituency for moderate, centre-right Conservatives who can embrace the environment, climate, gender, race, social justice, doing much more on poverty, much more on social care, much more on prisons, but also be fiscally responsible,” says Rory Stewart in your interview (‘Being an MP was bad for my brain, body and soul’: Rory Stewart on politics, privilege and podcast stardom, 29 August).
He is describing a Conservative party that he wishes existed rather than the one that has existed since at least 1979 and probably before then. Given his outspoken political views, I could never understand why he stood for parliament as a Conservative rather than as a Liberal Democrat or even Labour candidate. But then he is 100% of the establishment and standing as anything other than a Tory would be unthinkable. As your interviewer points out, his voting record shows him to be a true Tory.
If Stewart really believed in what he says then he would have crossed the floor. Perhaps if he ever returns to politics, it would be as a politician of a different colour. Until then, I regard him as a shape-shifter just as much as Liz Truss, only in the opposite direction.
Yoav Tzabar
Edinburgh
• Rory Stewart thinks Boris Johnson will attempt to return to frontbench politics. In the 20th century, four British prime ministers – Ramsay MacDonald, Stanley Baldwin, Winston Churchill and Harold Wilson – had more than one separate period in office. However, none of them were forced to resign because of persistent lying and the covering up of misdemeanours.
The idea that Johnson might be recalled to office at any time in the future inhabits only the minds of those who believe in fairies; after everything that has happened, in the last year in particular, I cannot believe that the country would accept him, even if the Conservatives were mad enough to suggest it.
Les Summers
Tackley, Oxfordshire
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