Politics On the Edge

Get in the xigxag app
This book is not purchasable in your country. Please select another book.
Pre-order Buy Now £{{ price }}
How does xigxag pricing work?

Listen to a sample

What to expect

Brought to you by Penguin.

From the former Conservative Cabinet minister and co-presenter of 2022's breakout hit podcast The Rest is Politics, a searing insider's account of ten extraordinary years in Parliament

Over the course of a decade from 2010, Rory Stewart went from being a political outsider to standing for prime minister - before being sacked from a Conservative Party that he had come to barely recognise.

Tackling ministerial briefs on flood response and prison violence, engaging with conflict and poverty abroad as a foreign minister, and Brexit as a Cabinet minister, Stewart learned first-hand how profoundly hollow and inadequate our democracy and government had become. Cronyism, ignorance and sheer incompetence ran rampant. Around him, individual politicians laid the foundations for the political and economic chaos of today.

Stewart emerged battered but with a profound affection for his constituency of Penrith and the Border, and a deep direct insight into the era of populism and global conflict.

Politics On the Edge invites us into the mind of one of the most interesting actors on the British political stage. Uncompromising, candid and darkly humorous, this is his story of the challenges, absurdities and realities of political life; a new classic of political memoir and a remarkable portrait of our age.

©2023 Rory Stewart (P)2023 Penguin Audio

Critics Review

  • Stewart… is a writer and his first loyalty is to his readers. Most of them will share his despair at the small-time mediocrities who dominate modern politics. Almost all will appreciate the book’s viciousness, eccentricity, wit and intelligence

    The Times, *Book of the Week*

  • Rarely before has the life of a government minister been described in such granular detail or with such literary flair… This book is a vital work of documentation: Orwell down the coal mine, Swift on religious excess. We should be grateful it was written and that Stewart never stopped being interesting.’

    Guardian, *Book of the Day*

  • The most compelling account I have read in recent years of the ways in which the British political system makes good government nigh-on impossible

    Sunday Times, *Book of the Week*

  • A superbly readable book. Former Tory minister Rory Stewart exposes the ‘shameful state’ of recent Conservative rule in this brilliant and blisteringly frank account of dysfunctional government

    Observer

  • Few political memoirs last for long. Rory Stewart’s Politics on the Edge may be an exception… Stewart’s memoir is a brilliant portrait of the Cameron-May-Johnson era. It is likely to become a classic on a par with Clark’s diaries

    Financial Times

Subscribe to our newsletter

Sign up to get tailored content recommendations, product updates and info on new releases. Your data is your own: we commit to protect your data and respect your privacy.