Rory Stewart says his family told him to switch off his social media after his viral appearance on Newsnight that saw him spin and stare intensely at a female journalist.
Former MP turned podcaster Mr Stewart, 53, gave a whole new meaning to political spin with his violent pivot to the New Statesman’s Ailbhe Rea last week.
A clip of the one-time Tory leadership challenger’s bizarre swivel, aired on September 18, became a sensation on social media this week.
But Mr Stewart, best known now as one of the co-hosts of The Rest Is Politics alongside former Labour spin doctor Alastair Campbell, has maintained his silence on it – until now.
In a clip posted to Newsnight’s TikTok account the politician – who was wearing an unexplained plaster on his face – said in a clip filmed today that he had been abroad since the show had gone out.
He added that he had been under the orders of his family to disable social media on his phone.
‘I’m just coming back from abroad and I’ve missed all of this because I was on an Army base and then I’ve been away,’ he said in the clip, filmed in the back of a car.
‘And, under strict instructions from my family I have disabled all social media on this phone.’
Wrapping it up, he said: ‘I don’t know what to say – thank you, and I guess all I can do is this.’ He then pulled off the head swivel once again, suggesting he has seen the funny side.
Reacting to the video, viewers appear to have chalked it up as another eccentric moment from Mr Stewart, who gained a reputation as a well-meaning but quirky oddball during his time in politics.
‘Rory is a loveable eccentric – I’m not sure what the problem is,’ said one viewer, while another said: ‘He clearly just didn’t realise he was on camera.’
‘Come on, you cannot hate this man,’ added a third commenter.
While he has acknowledged his viral moment, Mr Stewart did not explain exactly why he turned so suddenly to Ms Rea, political editor of the New Statesman.
He had just finished responding to a question on his attendance at the King’s artificial intelligence summit earlier this month, branding the notion of British society depending wholly on US and Chinese-owned AI firms ‘terrifying’.
As Ms Rea was prompted for her own thoughts by the host, former Daily Mail online political editor Matt Chorley, Mr Stewart turned and leaned intensely towards Ms Rea, who did not appear to react.
A two-second clip of the moment was posted on X earlier this week, where metrics suggest it has been seen 17 million times, picking up 23,000 likes.
The former Army officer and diplomat’s rapid twirl was compared by witty users to, among other things, a jackknifing lorry and a labrador hearing the opening of a bag of crisps.
While veteran political journalist Ms Rea did not immediately acknowledge Mr Stewart’s potent pirouette in the studio, she has since joked about the moment online.
Promoting an article on X on Thursday, she published a GIF of the moment Mr Stewart spun to look at her, captioning it: ‘By the way I would please like attention levels like this on my latest interview.’
Mr Stewart developed a reputation for endearing eccentricity and nerdiness during his time in Parliament, particularly as he ran in the 2019 Tory leadership contest ultimately won by Boris Johnson.
His earnest attempts at connecting with voters saw him taking awkward, unpolished selfies with members of the public that earned considerable online attention.
He was later named a ‘weird crush’ by viewers of the televised Tory leadership debates, particularly as he removed his tie during one broadcast – in order to, he later said, escape from the ‘alternate reality’ of the TV studio.
During the 2020 London mayoral race, in which he ran as an independent candidate, Mr Stewart launched a bizarre campaign in which he tried to invite himself into voters’ homes to see how the capital’s denizens live.
Prior to his political career Mr Stewart served briefly as an officer in the British Army, but quit the armed forces to study at Oxford, where he briefly tutored Princes William and Harry.
He then joined the Foreign Office in the late 1990s, working at the British Embassy in Jakarta, Indonesia, before serving as the British Representative to Montenegro in the aftermath of the Kosovo War.
Seeking solace, Mr Stewart then took leave to walk across Asia. The written chronicle of his walk across Afghanistan, The Places In Between, garnered international praise and was, rumour had it, optioned for a movie.
He became MP for Penrith and The Border in 2010 and served in the Cabinet in environment, international development and prisons positions before quitting Boris Johnson’s cabinet in 2019.
Losing the Tory whip after refusing to vote for a no-deal Brexit, Mr Stewart then stood down in December of that year, and pulled out of the London mayoral race when it was delayed by the Covid pandemic.
He used his Newsnight appearance to warn the UK off of dependence on US and Chinese-owned artificial intelligence, branding the notion of British military, hospitals and businesses relying on foreign software ‘terrifying’.
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