The Big Mood: Rory Stewart sacked by text
One week, one mood: Moya Lothian-Mclean’s deep-dive into the feel of the week.
Culture
Words: Moya Lothian-Mclean
Objectively, what is the most savage way to be dumped? Ghosting? A 27-second phone call with a Jonas Brother? Via text after serving for a decade as a parliamentary representative, just before you’re about to accept an award for GQ Politician of the Year?
Rory Stewart, a jockey from 1920 who tumbled through a time warp and found himself a Deputy Governor of an Iraqi province (it is nice, isn’t it, how much we have progressed since the height of colonialism) announced on Tuesday that – along with 20 other Tory rebels – he had been indecorously booted out of the herd of self-interested twats collectively known as the “Conservative Party”. All because he’d opposed Boris Johnson’s plans to push through a no-deal Brexit by 31st October.
Stewart declared this while receiving a shiny trophy from GQ, apparently for walking a lot (seriously, what has Rory Stewart done? What has he actually done? He has talked and he has walked and he has a terrible voting record but bar that, what the fuck has he achieved that would qualify him as Politician of the Year? Burn it all down. All of it).
Did I feel sympathy? No, because he’s a Tory and if you’re a Tory in 2019 I have nothing in my emotional reserves to give. But who among us does not recognise the feeling of suddenly realising that you’ve given over a significant chunk of your life, your health, your energy, your personhood to a cause/individual/ideology that gives not one shit about you?
Being dumped by text is the ultimate dismissal. It says: “Your meagre value to me has now been reduced to absolute zero and I don’t want to be in your physical presence again.” It says: “I haven’t got enough respect for you to pick up the phone and interrupt my day for even two minutes.” It says, simply: “CB-fucking‑A.”
This week was all about lack of respect. The PM trying to stage an outright coup by basically cancelling Parliament. Michael Owen calling his former football club – who paid him £120k a week – small timers, igniting the ire of Alan Shearer.
And now the former Rt Hon Rory Stewart. Unceremoniously reminded of what we all have to learn at some point: respect yourself because no one else is going to do it for you. Big Mood.
