Rory Stewart

The former Cabinet minister and hit podcast host talks to Alec Marsh about the parlous state of British politics, land management and his deep love of the countryside

- Alec Marsh

"THE LITTLE shooting I do is done in a kilt," says Rory Stewart as he sits for his photograph to be taken. He's being serious, too, one suspects.

"Except on the rare occasions that I shoot outside Scotland, of course. I don't bring it down to England." It turns out not quite all his shooting is done in a kilt, even north of the border. "I no longer stalk in a kilt," he grins.

"I learned my lesson." The gently spoken 51-year-old former Conservative Cabinet minister is a countryman at heart. That's clear: he even changes into a tweed waistcoat for the interview, which takes place at his London home and begins with a question about his precise career status. Having resigned from the Commons and the Conservative Party in 2019, the former diplomat and soldier has reinvented himself, first with an unconventional but promising run as an independent for the London mayoralty (abandoned because of COVID19 in 2020) and then as a media figure, co-hosting one of the country's most popular podcasts, The Rest Is Politics, alongside Alastair Campbell, the former Labour spin doctor.

Moreover, his fourth book, a political memoir, Politics on the Edge, came out last year and is a Sunday Times bestseller.

Has he, I ask, retired from politics? Not quite, is the short answer.