Only political pundits are excited by Rory Stewart as Tory leader – everyone else can see his mistakes

Uniting an utterly divided country will take more than another bland, posh, centre-right white guy who is good at social media

Rory Stewart’s bid for Conservative leadership, and to be this country’s next prime minister, is causing quite a buzz. Not among his Tory selectorate or among his colleagues in the wider Conservative Party – the Conservative Home website has him backed by only seven of his fellow MPs this morning. And the voting public doesn’t seem to be particularly impressed with him either: a Com Res poll has him only winning 51 seats for the Conservatives, while the leading candidate Boris Johnson is projected to win 395. I think Johnson’s numbers are inflated and Stewart’s depressed by their relative name recognition, but even so that’s not great for someone who wants to be chosen to fight the next general election.

Where Stewart is making a splash is among the newspaper columnists and the political Twitterati who long for the simpler times before politics changed, when they still understood the rules. I get that; I, too, long for a time when I don’t get a feeling of existential dread every time I write a piece, knowing how much I have got wrong in the past and how many hostages to fortune I am releasing every time I write another sentence on the subject of British politics.

Seeing the response to Stewart’s candidacy is like watching Liz Kendall’s campaign for Labour leadership all over again. They both excited a very small portion of the world who have outsized platforms and who commonly fail to grasp that although they may be nominally in the political centreground, it doesn’t mean they are in the same place as a majority of voters.

Kendall and Stewart have both been complimented on “brave” campaigns that essentially tell the membership, on which they rely for votes, they are wrong about everything they care about. Whatever your agreement or disagreement with that, it is not a successful election winning strategy. Kendall came last on 4 per cent in the Labour leadership contest; Stewart is on course to crash out of the Tory contest in the first one or two rounds of voting. No amount of glowing columns and tweets will change this.

The truth is that things have changed: longing for candidates who remind you of Tony Blair and David Cameron is as pointlessly nostalgic as longing for the 1950s – and look where that attitude has got us. Interestingly, looking backwards was never actually Blair or Cameron’s approach to politics. Both were about modernisation – or at least their initial projects were. But both only modernised to a point.

New Labour’s modernisation led to disastrous foreign policy choices and an economics that did too little to insulate against the crash of 2008. It changed the Labour Party, albeit temporarily, but the much-needed changes to the country it brought with it were too superficial, too easily overturned by what came next.

Cameron’s may have started off apeing Labour’s spending plans but soon reverted to Tory type, instituting a programme of austerity that has caused so much damage to the country. His party has since largely rejected his social liberalism and fully rejected his call to remain in the EU. Blair led to Corbyn; Cameron led to Brexit and probably Boris Johnson. I don’t know that either project could be called a long-term success, whatever else was achieved along the way.

It’s absolutely right to want a politics that is less febrile, less angry and more understanding of the need for compromise and mutual respect and understanding. But anyone seeking that needs to understand what it is that people on the left and right are angry about, and provide answers that speak to them now. There’s no use talking to the place politicians either wish voters to be in, or once thought they were. That’s exactly what Rory Stewart is doing.

Uniting our very divided country will take a great deal more than electing another bland, posh, centre-right white guy saviour, however good his social media game is. And until those who want to return to a more unifying politics recognise that, they have little hope of changing where we are.