

Duncan Stone
41.1K posts

@StoneDunk
Author of Different Class: The Untold Story of English Cricket. Shortlisted for @sportsbookaward Cricket Book of the Year 2023. Class - Culture - Environment









God they were rubbish














“Rory Stewart is the best prime minister we never had.” I can’t tell you how many times I’ve read that sentence, in my texts, in comments sections, after our interviews. Over the last 10 years he’s spoken to me as a Tory leadership contender, Covid canary in the coal mine, independent London mayoral candidate, or, as in this instance, a podcaster and author. His brand of conscientious conservatism beguiles the significant part of our country that is relatively normal and looked on in horror/confusion as the right wing actively attacked Britain and/or descended into explicit bigotry, parochialism, and conspiracy. We spoke about political evil and how it’s often fun to be so, boarding schools, and whether or not we should rewild wolves in Britain. Eclectic and thoughtful. Performative and precise. I think it’s the best episode of The Exchange so far, but it’s Yanis Varoufakis next week and that was pretty good too. Subscribe, listen in bio, text me about alternate realities. xx @RoryStewartUK @NewStatesman


On the panel this week, businessman and television personality Tom Skinner #bbcqt

The Banque de France has replaced its gold held in New York with newly standardised bars and moved them to Paris. The operation (2025–2026) generated 12.8bn € in gains, driven by rising gold prices. Now, all of France’s gold is held on its own soil. 🇫🇷

This is a brilliant - bleak - piece about the broken local politics of Birmingham. First class on the ground reporting by @alexrogerssky @JoshGafson1 These pieces aren’t easy - you only get footage like this with skill, graft and luck - please watch: