Dark horse Stewart could be a leader for the future

Whatever you might think of him personally, he is the main event. In the first ballot of Conservative MPs, he did better than expected, trouncing his rivals Jeremy Hunt and Michael Gove with a rather bigger margin than anyone had predicted.

The big issue now is how many votes each of these three contenders will pick up from previous supporters of Andrea Leadsom, Esther McVey and Mark Harper, the candidates automatically knocked out after the first round.

In case you need reminding of the arcane procedures, they’re narrowing down the front-runners until they have two names to put to party members who will then decide Theresa May’s successor.

We could talk for hours about the relative merits – and de-merits, if there is such a word – of Johnson, Hunt and Gove. However, to do so would miss the most interesting player emerging in this mighty leadership battle.

And that’s Rory Stewart, old Etonian, Oxford graduate, International Development Secretary and MP for Penrith and the Border. Unless the week ahead is even rockier than anyone anticipates, there is no way he will end up at the helm. This time around, at least.

Read that last sentence carefully. The theory, rapidly gaining ground, is that his current campaign is just a chance to show us what he’s made of. The bigger fight is yet to come.

Until now, Stewart was hardly a household name. He’d spent a lot of time abroad – Indonesia, Afghanistan and the Balkans. People said he was quirky. Perhaps his main claim to fame was that during his time at Defra in 2015, he was the Minister in charge of introducing the 5p plastic bag tax.

Now his own very particular brand of iconoclastic campaigning has captured the public imagination. He’s throwing down his gauntlet and saying the most extraordinary things, threatening to take Parliament to Westminster’s Methodist Central Hall if Johnson makes good his vow to shut it down in order to force through a no-deal Brexit.

This is stirring stuff, especially from a Conservative politician. It’s pretty much always been the case that a leadership contest has been the chance for the runners and riders to not only show their own hand, but showcase their wares in the hope that the eventual winner will regard them favourably when it comes to dishing out senior Cabinet appointments.

And whilst Stewart, who came seventh in the first ballot, has now indicated that he could serve in a Cabinet led by Boris Johnson after also saying that he could vote to bring down a Johnson-led government.

He told Radio 4’s Today programme: “If we ended up in a crisis, and I fear no-deal Brexit would be a crisis, and if he were to wish me to come back, which I think is a little doubtful given the slight acrimony of the last few weeks, then, of course, I’d be honoured to serve.”

If Johnson does go ahead and take the crown, he would be wise to consider his rival’s credentials carefully. Although 54 per cent of Tory activists say they want Johnson as leader and Prime Minister, Stewart is their second choice.

Also, whilst most of us would struggle to come up with an inventory of more than three things Johnson would actually like to do to help improve the country beyond Westminster, Stewart has a list that stretches to three figures.

Writing in this newspaper, he spoke movingly of the need for “a hundred new policies” to tackle the problems which affect us all. From establishing super-fast broadband to abolishing hospital parking fines to planting 100 million new trees to counteract air pollution and reduce our carbon footprint, his manifesto ranged far and wide.

Whilst the small question of where the money might come from to fund his wish-list is still to be answered, what we should be focusing on is the fact that he actually mentions the word “policies”.

Isn’t it true that what’s been missing, across the political spectrum, are new ideas? Isn’t this one of the (many) reasons why Labour has failed in Opposition and why Change UK has faltered at the first fence?

Haven’t we complained that Brexit has dominated the agenda so much and for so long, other concerns have been shoved on the back burner? Isn’t it the case that millions of us worry about the polarisation of politics and the nasty extremism which blights democratic debate?

And don’t we suspect that too many would-be Conservative leaders lack freshness, or shoulder past misjudgments which overshadow their wider appeal? To borrow a football analogy, don’t watch the striker, keep your eye on the man coming up in midfield.