Rory Stewart's Long March to the Border

Sunday, 3rd January 2010

It's a curious feature of British politics these days that an ex-army, ex-FCO hand educated at Eton and Oxford can reasonably considered a "new" kind of politician. Then again, Rory Stewart isn't your average Old Etonian. Assuming, as seems likely, he wins Penrith and the Border he seems likely to be the new member of parliament who will be the subject of more envy and perhaps jealousy than any of his peers. So be it.

I rather enjoyed his account, published in the Sunday Times today, of the walking tour he's made of his prospective constituency. There's much good sense in it and, frankly, one approves of the idea of an MP making such a progress on an annual basis. This too has an appeallingly old-fashioned feel to it. And there's some good sense too. This is, I think, the key point:

Walking has given me more than I hoped: living in Cumbrian homes and experiencing the great distances between communities. It allows me to learn from a hundred people I might never have encountered by car. But it has not provided neat solutions. It is easy to see they should have listened to the gritter driver about his truck — but I’ve found out that the government has spent three times as much on upgrading a mile-long footpath as on the entire affordable housing for the district. This is not just about an individual’s decisions, it is about budget lines and regulation insurance and a whole way of looking at the world. I realise that to change government needs not just cutting regulations or giving parishes control of money, but also shifting an entire public culture over decades.

This is not Afghanistan, with officials behind security walls, doing short tours, making extravagant decisions about people whose language and culture they barely comprehend. The people I meet are able to fight for things they value and understand. From Brampton, where a woman tells me of the 30-ton boulders that the council laid in a car park — “as though there had been a meteor shower over night” — and her campaign “to get them back to Mars”; to a parish councillor 50 miles away who had got round council rules by laying the access ramp to the working men’s club himself at night, Cumbrians are balancing their tolerance for government with acts of initiative and subversion.

Quite. Changing or shifting this kind of bureaucratic culture is, alongside rescuing the public finances, the biggest task facing a putative Conservative government. David Cameron sometimes makes encouraging noises about this but the proof, as ever, will be in delivery not the promise of action. Here, alas, one must counsel some scepticism since the attractions of power are such that all the incentives lie in consolidating, not decentralising power. In other words: believe the Tory mantra of localism when it happens and not before then...

Filed under: Rory Stewart (7 more articles) , Tories (265 more articles)

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Noa Zrk

January 3rd, 2010 1:20pm Report this comment

An interesting take on political reform Alex. But the eternal optimism of the idealistic political novice is always doomed to ultimate failure following the reality of election.
Reform needs to start from the top. With reform of the HoL to an elected 2nd chamber acting as a counter-balance to a smaller, fixed term empowered Commons. An elected Prime Minister? Emphatically yes! The time is well overdue to challenge the current rotten unaccountable oligarchy.
With a balanced and accountable central government reform could proceed to a smaller, far less centralised reform of local government, with directly elected and tax accountable police and key fire and health services.
Don't bank on any of it happening though. Once they get to the Commons most MP's stop talking tough and start talking trough!

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