Rory Stewart is the back-of-field Tory leadership candidate who’s catching most attention at the moment; popping up all over London inviting all comers to talk to him about policy and ideas. He’s a politician with real hinterland- and you can get a flavour of that hinterland in the conversation we had when he came to talk to me about his last book, The Marches.
It’s at once the tale of a meandering journey he made along the Anglo-Scottish border around the time of the Scottish independence referendum (Rory is MP for Penrith and the Borders), and a tender account of his relationship with his father Brian. Soldier, spy, adventurer and haggis-eater, Brian, then in his 90s, joined his son for part of the journey — and their interactions add colour and poignancy to Rory’s consideration of what unites and divides us, and what we mean by home.
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