The Marches
RORY STEWART

Power and Pragmatism: The Memoirs of Malcolm Rifkind
MALCOLM RIFKIND

The Long and Winding Road: A Memoir
ALAN JOHNSON

Hinterland
CHRIS MULLIN

Is the political memoir dead? The answer is “No”, to judge from how many are published. But perhaps the market is going down. David Cameron got only a quarter of the advance that Tony Blair did for his memoirs. Yet there will always be readers for a well-written book by an interesting polit­ician. Obama arguably became President on the back of his autobiography The Audacity of Hope, but in the world of Twitter and sound bites, smaller politicians have lost all muscle and verve in using words to make a case or advance a cause.

Rory Stewart is a glorious exception. His book is a son’s tribute to a beloved father, Brian Stewart, a figure straight out of John Buchan. Dashing Highlands aristocrat, brave soldier in the Second World War, Far East diplomat, arms salesman and spy, Brian Stewart lived the fullest of lives. As he faced death in his nineties, he went on a walk with his son along Hadrian’s Wall, up to his ancestral home, and back across the border where Rory Stewart has his Lake District constituency.