Re-enchanting... Politics - Rory Stewart
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- čas přidán 15. 01. 2024
- www.seenandunseen.com/podcast
There’s more to life than the world we can see. Re-Enchanting is a podcast from Seen & Unseen engaging faith and spirituality with leading figures in science, history, politics, art and education. Can our culture be re-enchanted by the vision of Christianity?
Such an intersting interview! It a sad testimony to the state of politics that he is now a podcast host, and not at the highest level of government.
Well, Rory Stewart did rebel against a key manifesto pledge and three-line whip. Stewart could not reasonably expect any other outcome.
@@jonathandnicholson I get that. My problem is that people seem to prefer a fat joker like Johnson, or a vacuous sock puppet like Truss, to thoughtful people like Stewart. Shame.
And he didn't, he knew what he was doing and accepted the consequences. He's never cried foul about it.
Because it was just so far over his personal line. Other things had been over his line, but not enough to overcome his sense of duty to the team and - he says, one can choose to believe him or not but I do - his strong belief that you've got to be in power to be able to make a proper tangible lasting difference. It's his continued sense of that which is why he'd be so keen to accept a ministerial post even now (plus he'd love love love to be a lord. He's not ashamed of that, and to be honest it everyone who wanted to be a lord did so with Rory's drive and determination we'd be a lot less worried about who is one)
I'm a fan. He's a Tory, so I disagree with him a lot especially his support of austeroty. But he's one of less than a handful where I believe their sincerity, and where their moral compass is right on show... So you can tell where his heart is, and take him or leave him at that. He's basically all face value and rapport building, even when he wants to disagree with you. I like that in a person. He wants to get to the right outcome, and he's willing to at least sincerely hear why his idea might not be the right one.
He's certainly the only Tory who might ever make me break my vow to never vote for them, if (and only if) he was my actual constituency MP. I could trust that he actually has a spine, because he's learned what he's like when he briefly didn't have one and he hated himself for it, then eventually said no - rather than justifying himself and becoming just another careerist. Jfc the man actually wants ministers to have training! He can be argued with sensibly and wants politicians to take their jobs seriously, not their careers. What's not to like, as an individual politician, regardless of party? It's the same sort of reason Caroline Lucas is so respected. If she was my MP I'd vote for her regardless of my favourite party. Same with Rory. Unless they were against each other in which case I'd write to both and beg they formed a new party instead so I could vote for that.
Mind you my current MP it wouldn't really be a hard choice.
He's a smart guy but far too close to the security services to be trusted!
Though maybe he can do more god there and with his charities. He's able to tell a lot of truth.
I had thought RS was an outstanding human being. Then I read his book. I realised that he is like me and most of my colleagues at work. We care about people and try to do our job properly. In modern UK politics, this makes him look exceptional.
I am not a conservative but surely any political party needs sensible dedicated people in their ranks. Go on Rory - give it a go.
Rory isn’t really a modern conservative either, he fits in far better with the elite media where he is now.
I'm very much NOT a conservative but I am always impressed with Rory, loved his most recent book and an avid listener to his podcast. I think however, especially in light of his experiences described in the book, that he can do more good outside of the job of politician as a communicator and a bridge between the divisions.
Yes, but what the Conservative Party also needs is conservatives in Parliament. Rory isn't one. He's a liberal who's only in the Conservative Party because he knows no-one will vote for liberal elites because we've all suffered from their utter incompetence over the last 27 years.
Inspired choice of both interviewer and guest. Please do more in this format. Thank you
So glad you've done an episode with him, this is going to be brilliant.
Superb interview. Strangely, at a distance JA in profile looks like an older version of Alastair Campbell. So good to have gently probing conversations with such mutual respect evident and clear opportunities to respond fully.
RIGHT IT'S ON RECORD - Starmer can make Roruy a lord and BRING HIM BACK as whatever he wants. We need principled politicians who are intelligent, detail-orientated and will stick with things and see them through to actually improve the country and the world.
A man of integrity and a humanitarian
Along with his modesty, sense of humour and curiosity of life, he would doubtless cause total panic in Downing Street.
Wow! Thank you for an AMAZING and inspiring episode!
The pause rory had when questioned of God reminded me of his ex subject Christopher Hitchens whom replied on his closeness to death if hed changed his mind about god ,no said he,but i do like surprises.we all await the surprise.i very respected rory as he walked the middle east only way to have an opinion on it is to experience it. Let's see what rory does in the next 31 years in catching up to his elegant hosts encouragement
Aitken: a classic case of "the problem" in politics. Convicted of perjury and perverting the course of justice (for lying about taking Saudi money [in hospitality] while a government minister). One of the guys in it for themselves. A complete windbag. Something about relieving oneself if he was on fire....
Stewart: classic case of "the solution". By all accounts a good man, with new thinking who found himself incompatible with politics as practiced in the UK and walked away rather than play Boris's childish games. Integrity, intelligence and decorum. The adult in the room.
Fantastic podcast!
Stewart says that many government ministers have become detached from reality and spend their time largely thinking about provocative, eye-catching statements to charm the media, drive up their public profile etc, This connects to what political philosopher Dr. Vlad Vexler has said about politicians who engage in entrepreneurial and exploitative politics whilst having no good account to offer of agency (who is going to do what, how and when, and via which mechanisms).
I have to say Aitkin has literally been redeemed, one way or another. Which is good to see. An excellent interview. Stewart is a man of great integrity, clarity of thought and purpose, and humility; our country badly needs many more like him.
I love this guy Rory,bought all 3x books...He speaks for most decent human beings. We are mesmerised to watch him after being subjected to all the political shennanigans in vogue mainly PR driven, frothy, self interested sickening drivel we are getting from the rest of the west, where watching ethnic cleansing of Pallestinians and being tortured watching it as well as the unfortunates being actually tortured, Rory brings us hope by stating the truth and standing up the the rest of the pathetic political specimens .
Excellent conversation!
Something,s up! Rory wearing a suit? One great mind always thinking…always worth my time to listen
Very interesting as usual, when it involves Rory. Those mugs are awesome. Can we find out where they are from?😅
@1.54: "Jonathan Aitken, a career that has seen him as politician, prisoner and priest." I blush at the choice of inappropriate rejoinders that statement could inspire.
Like many others, I think Rory would be a principled, thoughtful politician, who would correctly identify, based on sound thinking, what needs doing in any area he managed. I hope he can work his way into a position of authority in the world of politics where he can make a difference. His astonishing track record in Afghanistan, where he describes a charity that he set up and which his wife runs, surely suggests he can and will. I am only surprised to hear him suggest (at about 36 minutes) that being a good politician, employer or businessman is based on religious faith. In my working life I knew managers who were pragmatic, principled and highly effective, who correctly identified what should be done, who knew how to motivate staff and how to treat customers, and who ultimately achieved great things both inside and outside the workplace. They did so because they were fair-minded and intelligent, not because they thought it was their religious duty. Human dignity does not depend on belief in a god (for god's sake). We live on a rapidly deteriorating speck of matter in a gradually dissipating universe that is sufficiently explained by science to allow us to be confident that there is nothing divine anywhere. While it lasts, I suggest that all we can (and should) do is care for one another as best we can as human beings, regardless of the fact that some people are also believers.
The divisive nature of the westminster system is the fundamental problem
Roosevelt may have quoted from "Morituri Salutamis" but Longfellow wrote it.
Rory Stewart scrubs up well. It’s the smartest I’ve ever seen him. Oh and is that Jonathan Aitken in a dog collar?
He's a Reverend...
Rory should be PM
Religion absolutely does not communnicate that people are an end in themselves rahther than a means to an end - that's Kant and explicitly atheistic.
Should the prison system be turned on its head and run as a rehabilitative system for individuals/society rather than a costly, not that effective punitive one? Is there any interest for this concept across the political spectrum?
If you did that it wouldn't be profitable. Prisons now are a business and need customers. You lose your customer base if you rehabilitate them.
What does profit have to do with a fit for purpose, functioning prison system working for the society whose tax contributions fund it ?
@rady8589 under the current government? Everything. It isn't primarily focussed on rehabilitation, it's first and foremost about profit making for the private sector. Don't judge by what they say, judge by what they do. All public services are there to be just good enough to keep the public placated, whilst opening doors for the extraction of the maximum profit out of them for the interests of those companies who fund the Conservative Party.
I'd hope the last decade and a bit would have clearly taught us that.
@@nadiabrady8589 of course, to answer your question, it SHOULD be all about rehabillitation. Of that there is no doubt in my mind.
So Mr Stewart, I look forward to your constructing a team of like minded thinkers to take the helm and get us out of this awful mess. Perhaps then the public might be bothered to vote. I am 63 and am totally upset that democracy has virtually been transitioned to a dictorial system. I hope that common decency and serious debate can find its way back into politics, at least for the current generation to have purpose.
Oh, I think I’m going to end up in prison if I loose my lifetime love of motorcycling; along with many, so you’d better get them prisons built😂
If I may disagree with one bit: we don't need like minded people in the sense of similar thinkers. But we do need Rory + people with his sense of duty and analytical compassion. If they have that, they can be any background, and any political leaning, because by nature they could not be all that and also be ideologues, which is what has sunk us generally and kept us from moving away from the false left/right choice first past the post only gives. Heck, it only pretends to give us even that.
A bunch of people who care about getting to the right answer not their favourite answer is what we need.
Wish RS had been our PM over the last 5 years.. The country surely would have been in a better place. He still could be.. (I’ll be voting Labour) but I think a lot of folk would vote for RS now that we know his true calibre.
Response to HL....
exactly that..who is controlling them?
Very serious Q....
Rory, remember that bad people do bad things because good people do nothing and that the wrong people are in power because the right people do not want to be.
Disagree with his stance on Brexit and his defence of Obama, Biden and Merkel who are remnants of the old neoliberal order. But he's absolutely right about the lack of seriousness in our public life - I don't think Cameron, Johnson or Sunak are serious about tackling the deep-seated problems affecting society. The rot seems to be spreading- immigration being the most obvious example.
Rory's connection with Alaster Campbell was a negative to me. ! Like all Remainers, they have completely neglected a huge cohort of young people steming back to the Newsom Report of not being fully implemented. " Half our future." .by successive governments. Down grading apprenticeships, etc.
A process that began with Margaret Thatcher
Interesting his comments on Henry VIII, Thomas Moore & Thomas Cromwell
If anyone was ever detached from reality it's Mr I want to sleep on your sofa.
Well done to the both of you with your new project by the timeline to make better. I cannot accept charity without care or negative jokes.
The deep connection between faith and politics in Northern Ireland is hardly a great advert for the principle.
Julian Assange ???
Skip the first three mins if you actually want to just hear the interview rather than snippets from the interview that go nowhere followed by the opening theme.
Most annoying thing interview and podcast channels do is include that preview. Its not needed, people are watching cos of whos in the thumbnail and the video title. Youre not tv.
😢JA is getting hard to listen to and understand
Does the posh boy on the right do voiceover work? Asking for a friend.. 😅
So much nicer to be reticent. Over here it's just embarrassing for the most part, and they aren't running charities.
Lack of faith & religion highlights the generational differences between these two. One representative of the 70's/80's generation & the other, UK modern society that sees only the hypocrisy of Religion & its leaders, especially a Rory Stewart of the Masonic Lodge, that arguably evades the question. Both these individuals are now on the wrong side of UK society views, with their views. Rory has a point on the seriousness of politics, but culture of modern society, is sound bites and that gene is not going away anytime soon. Another interesting pod-cast with Rory talking, yet talk comes to nothing, only actions with results successful or otherwise, as was alluded.
Rory is a Christian.
Rory was already ahead of the game: he became detached from conservative policies and practices in advance of the current situation. More fool him.
Good to listen to, but they are both missing the fundamental point! The State is too big! Govt needs to be cut back! Minister with responsibility for National Parks????? What has govt got to do with national parks???
What does government have to do with national parks? They are proclaimed by government, funded by government, managed by government. They are NATIONAL parks? What on earth do you mean by your comment?
In my prejudiced mind I can only see such a comment coming from a joundice well off Telegraph reader that has a footpath intersecting his estate, oh and a shot gun. He can proclaim that we need less Govt because he is definitively representative of the country at large.
But..
What the world needs now is more not fewer Leslie Knope's, no not just for some but for everyone..
@aidanknox122 you can call me anything but please don't call me a Telegraph reader!
@@joepaluka9031 yes, fair doos. I think it's the only thing I would apologise for too.
With over 50% of the population now adverse to religion and one would think its effects on our politics and culture, I can no longer see a real purpose for this channel other than to manage its own decline.
There is a case to be made that the decline in religion has also brought about a decline in morality and virtue. Whatever you think of religion, for whatever reason you think it, morality and virtue require a foundation in human character. The decline in religion seems to be related to a decline in belief that character can even BE virtuous or moral.
Religion and faith is not in decline as much as the media would like you to believe...
@@kenrickhackett3977 The foundation you speak of does not require religion. It is bases on mammalian psychology, that of fairness, reciprocity and not supernatural intervention.
@@adamisherwood6708 That’s what I hear from people who regard religion as nonsense. Whenever I hear “religion is superstion”, I hear someone speaking who does not really know anything about religion other than that it exists and atrocities have been carried out in its name. Religious history, in addition to the Founders, who were clearly extraordinary in their ability to inspire people, is filled with the names of great thinkers and sages: Dante and Milton, Thomas Aquinas and Albertus Magnus, Thomas a Kempis, many more in Christianity. In Islam, Abdal Qadir Jilani, Ibn Arabi, Rumi and so many others. Judaism has its own line: read the Prophets and Psalms and Ecclesiastes with an unbiased eye and you will find both beauty and profundity. Likewise the history of Buddhism is characterized by great thinkers and sages, as is Hinduism. Does this mean that everything done in the name of religion is Good or Godly. There are, sadly, always more figures willing to use whatever is at their disposal to satisfy their lusts and greeds than there are wise and saintly men and women. In our time, the scandals of priest’s sexually abusing children is the most glaring. But our loss of morality has not been accompanied by any discernible loss in “mammalian psychology,” has it? It has, however, been accompanied by a decline in religious belief. Religion reminds us that the Holy exists, but religion itself is a trap-- a prison fashioned in the name of freedom. The fact that prisons exist does not mean that freedom doesn’t exist outside their walls and rules.. The fact that churches and mosques and synagogues and templles exist does not mean that the Divine does not exist outside of their walls and dogma.
If Rory really cared about women prisoners he would denounce any policy that countenances putting men in women’s prisons. He never mentions the subject. It's cowardly and hypocritical and suggests he's either not paying attention or he is just as stupid as most politicians.
I like Rory, but its incredibly annoying the way he speaks and you are left hanging around for the next word. "I......I...................I think...... look................um......... I think.....................................................look........I.......................um.......most of our institutions.......................is.............and.............so.....". Its incredibly irritating when you are listening and constantly thinking the Internet link is broken.
I am very disappointed to learn Rory Stewart - my favourite politician - is not an Atheist but a praying Christian. I dont think there is any room for magical beliefs an enlighted society. I think it is hard to trust any politician who believes the laws of nature can be suspended.
You really need to widen your intellectual curiosity. There's a reason Christianity has been around for two thousand years. Because it's true. And it permeates every part of our lives.
Stalin and Mao were atheists and enforced atheist states on hundreds of millions of people, both were responsible for tens of millions of deaths maybe more along with other nightmares such as forced abortions, denunciation, false imprisonment and more. Atheism doesn’t guarantee enlightenment or progress. Enlightened societies accept that religion plays an important role in many peoples lives and leave them to it.
Rory is a former politician, not a politician, that’s a running theme in this conversation
Well Rory Stewart is an expert on being detached from reality. Every word pure drivel.
It is scary isn't it? I think they must be more detached than the Russian ruling class at the time of the revolution.
Cite an example or two of drivel detached from reality? That politicians are unserious today, or that change comes about from disgust with what's happenimg, or that his work on prisons & in Afghanistan were noble?
blah, blah, blah, blah, blah grow up@@Tc-ih8zj
This is such meaningless shit how can anyone bear it?
It is actually quite meaningful to some of us. Real thoughtfulness is always inspiring. Probably because there seems so little of it in public life today.
What exactly is/was meaningless? Give an example.
I object! Character, virtue, honesty, etc, are not the exclusive domain of religion. I am astonished by Rory on this subject.