‘Politics on the Edge’ presents an account of British politics that is self-assured in its mediocrity. I found much of his accounting stunning and incredible. Surely, they know that an aircraft carrier is not much good without a carrier battle group. Liz Truss really cannot be as batty in private as she appeared in public. No, she really was that batty. ‘The problem with you, Rory, is that you are always trying to be interesting.’ “Never be interesting.”
Stewart has the profile-writer’s facility for instantly recognisable one-sentence descriptions. Brown makes policy ‘brooding like a vast spider with melancholy ferocity, late into the night’ whereas Cameron is ‘chair of a 1980s stockbroking house – appropriately dressed, brisk on the agenda, not pretending to obsess over detail, conscious of other pressures on his time.’