Centrists need to stop worrying and learn to love politics 

Readers of Rory Stewart’s memoir, “Politics on the Edge”, are given a sense of what it must be like for a Parisian to come across a sweating, vomiting and disillusioned Japanese visitor. “Paris syndrome” can strike tourists who have spent years dreaming of the French capital, only to be sent insane by the reality of a city that contains the Louvre as well as homelessness, public urination and dog poo. Mr Stewart, a former cabinet minister and poster boy of centrist Britons, suffers from Westminster syndrome. Years of longing for a career in politics led to impossible expectations. The reality turned Mr Stewart a bit mad.