An interesting Rory Stewart article

Thank you for posting this PIppaZ. I saw it in my hard copy of the New Statesman but DH got his hands on it first so I haven't read it yet.

I recently read Stewart’s comments on Johnson’s antics at the Police memorial.

It was far from complementary.

I'm a bit at his reasons for choosing to be a tory. Or perhaps he was just being a bit facetious..

But, whatever our very Left wing people on here might say, I think there's a big gulf between tory and Labour social policies and that, for me, is really important.

Much as I like Rory the Tory I would never vote for him

I thought I was the only one who called him Rory the Tory!

I didn't feel I was being asked to vote for him right now. We are all flawed and we all come from slightly different or very different backgrounds so I found it interesting to read his views on who he is. I think I treated it a bit more as I would like information from a good lecturer who knows his subject from the inside out. That means I can "discuss" without dissenting.

I would like to know more about this part of his thinking:

There is something structurally gone wrong with the Labour Party. Something odd is happening to people’s relationship to parties in general. What’s happening to Labour is what’s happening to left-wing parties across Europe, which have lost their working-class bases and become parties of urban intellectuals. Socialism created a strong alliance between two very different groups: working-class Labour, which was often more conservative and socialist-patriotic than people acknowledged; and the intelligentsia. And somehow, across Europe, it’s broken.

I would rather analyse than argue so I find this sort of thing very useful input.

I think that's a completely accurate analysis of what is happening.