Tuesday, 7 May 2019

Back to 19th century Tory Grandee Prime Ministers,

Political Betting tells us that

A recent big mover in the next CON leader betting is Rory Stewart who last week got into the cabinet following the sacking of Gavin Williamson. Over the weekend he announcedthat he would seek the leadership when TMay finally steps aside and he’s moved to the fifth favourite slot.
Do we need another  PM  whose CV reads like a 19th century grandee?

Stewart was born in Hong Kong, the son of the diplomat Brian Stewart and his wife Sally Elizabeth Acland Nugent. His family live in the listed Broich House near Crieff in Perthshire, Scotland. He was brought up in Malaysia and Scotland and was educated at the Dragon School in Oxford and Eton College. During his gap year in 1991, he was commissioned ("short service limited commission") in the Black Watch for five months as second lieutenant (on probation). He then attended Balliol CollegeOxford University, where he read Modern History, before switching to Philosophy, Politics and Economics.] While a student at Oxford, Stewart was a private tutor to Prince William and Prince Harry during the summer.As a teenager, he was a member of the Labour Party and never voted, in person, for the Conservative Party (when travelling in 2001, he was "dismayed" to discover that his proxy vote had gone to the Conservatives). 

Even the Labour Party bit looks like a right pf passage  of a future Tory having his moment of Rebellion

In July 2014 Stewart launched Hands Across The Border, a project to construct a cairn called 'The Auld Acquaintance' as "a testament to the Union".[52] Built by members of the public it is close to the Scotland–England border near Gretna. During the run up to the Scottish independence referendum.] Stewart said of the project: "We wanted to come up with a lasting marker of our union, something that future generations will look back at and remember, with deep gratitude, the moment we chose to stay together."[54] The campaign received support from several notable public figures in the UK, including actress Joanna Lumley, explorer Sir Ranulph Fiennes, mountaineers Alan Hinkes and Doug Scott, and historians Simon Schama and David Starkey.
Approximately 100,000 stones were laid on the cairn, many with personal messages.
Personally I doubt  that 100,000 people contributed and wonder if there was a mass delivery by lorry.
At the same time, Stewart hosted a two-part documentary on BBC Two about the cross-border history of what he called "Britain's lost middleland",[covering the kingdoms of Northumbria and Strathclyde and the Debatable Lands of the Scottish Marches on the Anglo-Scottish border.[
Joanna Lumley describe her personal relationship with the United Kingdom. Joanna said:

 “I just don’t see that we can ever be divided; we are all so interlinked with each other. No matter whether we live north or south of the border, if you scratch back at our histories we are all related. Humanly, it just doesn’t seem possible, separating us.”

I hope the monument remains  as  a symbol of the decit imposed on Scotland, but it could be a good idea to build a cairn on the other side of the boarder in which ordinary members of the Scottish public  and not English relics of the Empire  placed stones supporting Scottish Independence.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Joanna Lumley the woman that talks incessantly about England on her shows, never the UK, never Britain but England. Well those of us not in England are already separate from that thanks.