I have a constituency with 52,000 people and a million sheep. I was in one village where a local kid was run over by a tractor. They took him to Carlisle, but they couldn't be bothered to wait at the hospital. So they put him in a darkened room for two weeks, then said he was fine. But I'm not so sure he was.

I think one of the odd things about public life, coming from the outside, is that people seem to be paranoid. Maybe they were quite frank initially, but then they did one thing which went wrong.

It was a bit of a surprise when I became a Tory MP. My friends said it was a stupid idea.

Rory Stewart Quotes