In a recent interview for The Big Issue Paul Weller said that, “This country is run by idiots and fools”, and if you thought that was a typical Weller exaggeration reading Rory Stewart’s Politics On the Edge proves his point on every single page. Apparently, there are one or two good people, but from what I could make out The Tory Party are a bunch of shits from top to bottom. Posh chancers, buffoons, Eton nobheads: the Tory Party should be flushed down the crapper. Though, whether you needed a book to confirm this is moot. And Rory, good egg, right? Maybe. The trouble is he’s a bit of a know-it-all and from what I can make out borderline charmless. For some reason he has a remarkable facility for treading on toes. Although all the toes he steps on seem to be connected to Tory turds who are consistently irritable and dyspeptic. Guilty consciences maybe. Sounds entertaining? Right? Wrong. It’s borderline unreadable, the state of our parliamentary democracy festering and rotting in the House of Commons, it’s as disgusting and dysfunctional as it could possibly be. Every disagreeable Tory voting against this country’s and the wider world’s best interests deserving a punch on the nose. Of course, the usual suspects from the media lapped up Politics On the Edge with the kind of pull quotes that must have made Rory’s publishers think they’d struck MP’s expense claim gold. But, of course, the usual suspects are the same people that have lived with, had drinks with, and broken bread with these Tory fuckwits their whole lives. A plague on them all. There’s really no point buying this book as I’ve critiqued it perfectly. And if you want to read a Rory Stewart, Occupational Hazards is the one. That is all.

Steven Long