Rory Stewart: podcast appearances and interviews

Rory Stewart is a British academic, broadcaster, writer, and former diplomat and politician. He teaches and co-directs the Brady-Johnson Program in Grand Strategy at the Yale Jackson School of Global Affairs. Since 2022, Stewart has co-hosted the podcast The Rest Is Politics with Alastair Campbell. He served as a Member of Parliament for Penrith and The Border from 2010 to 2019 and held various positions in the British government from 2015 to 2019, including roles under Prime Ministers David Cameron and Theresa May. Born in British Hong Kong, Stewart attended the Dragon School and Eton College before serving briefly in the Black Watch military regiment. He studied philosophy, politics, and economics at Balliol College, Oxford, then joined the Foreign Office, where he held diplomatic posts in Indonesia and Montenegro. After leaving the Foreign Office, he undertook a solo walk across Asia, which inspired his best-selling book The Places in Between. He later founded the Turquoise Mountain Foundation, an NGO focused on human development in Afghanistan. Stewart has also been a professor at the Harvard Kennedy School. His political career included serving as chair of the Defence Select Committee and as a government minister in roles related to water, forestry, rural affairs, international development, and prisons. He ran for Leader of the Conservative Party in 2019, opposing a no-deal Brexit, and parting ways with the Conservative Party later that year. He stood down as an MP and aspires to public office, having announced candidacies for London mayor, which he withdrew. Stewart served as president of GiveDirectly from 2022 to 2023 and published a memoir titled Politics on the Edge in 2023, recounting his career as an MP.