Rory Stewart’s centrist squirm

With three days to go until 4 July, who else would you want to hear from but Rory Stewart? Cometh the hour, cometh the king of the centrist dads as the ex-cabinet minister today temporarily swapped his podcast for Times Radio. Appearing on Andrew Neil’s show this afternoon, Stewart was asked to give his thoughts on how to fix the world’s woes. With apathy and cynicism on the rise, the former Tory leadership contender suggested that one way of tackling the issue would be that age-old favourite, constitutional reform.

Asked by Neil to name a single ‘distinctive policy or position’ espoused by the One Nation Tory tribe to which Stewart once belonged, the ex-International Development Secretary replied:

RS: ‘I’d argue decentralisation, which is a kind of pompous way of saying that the basic problem with both the old Blairite vision of the world and the problem with the populists is that they’re both centralisers, they’re people who basically believe in concentrating power, industrial strategies, protectionism.