{"id":781324,"date":"2026-09-24T18:12:11","date_gmt":"2026-09-24T18:12:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/781324\/"},"modified":"2026-09-24T18:12:11","modified_gmt":"2026-09-24T18:12:11","slug":"the-eyes-have-it-rory-stewarts-magnificently-strange-newsnight-moment-goes-viral-rory-stewart","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/781324\/","title":{"rendered":"The eyes have it: Rory Stewart\u2019s \u2018magnificently strange\u2019 Newsnight moment goes viral | Rory Stewart"},"content":{"rendered":"

Rory Stewart has been an Afghan NGO leader, a Conservative leadership candidate, a Harvard professor, a popular podcaster, and the deputy governor of an Iraqi province.<\/p>\n

This week, he created a moment that drew wider attention than any of them: he fixed a beady gaze on a fellow Newsnight<\/a> panellist for the longest four seconds in television history.<\/p>\n

Stewart, who now co-presents The Rest Is Politics podcast with Alastair Campbell, appeared on the BBC<\/a> programme on 18 September \u2013 but in the last few days, a clip of the moment in question has taken on a life of its own on social media.<\/p>\n

Stewart appeared alongside the former Labour leader Neil Kinnock and the New Statesman\u2019s political editor, Ailbhe Rea, to discuss the day\u2019s main news stories, including the race between China and the US to develop artificial intelligence (AI).<\/p>\n

\"RoryRory Stewart on Newsnight<\/p>\n

After Stewart made his comments, the presenter Matt Chorley asked Rea what Westminster could do about the development of AI. Stewart then swivelled around in his chair and stared directly at the journalist with an expression \u2013 and posture \u2013 of absolute focus.<\/p>\n

Chorley told the Guardian the behaviour had not appeared overly strange in person: \u201cI didn\u2019t notice Rory looking particularly intently at anyone during the course of the programme,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

He only became aware of what had happened when several friends texted him. \u201cYou know a moment from Newsnight has cut through when friends and family who don\u2019t normally watch it are suddenly sending me clips,\u201d he said. \u201cBut it is just quite a funny moment.\u201d<\/p>\n

He added that as it was the first Newsnight episode to move to the programme\u2019s new earlier slot at 7pm, it had been \u201cquite manic\u201d in the runup. He had even joked to the panellists: \u201cAnything that can be used to go viral, maybe a punchup or whatever, a tiff at the table, if you want to do that, that\u2019d be great.\u201d<\/p>\n

Chorley observed that Stewart was \u201cused to this\u201d, after another clip of him taking his tie off during a Tory leadership debate had gone viral in 2019.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s not the first time that something he\u2019s done has gone wild online. I think he was genuinely probably just intently listening to what Ailbhe had to say. But there was something about the camera angle and his very direct look,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Many behaviours that appear normal in person can look strange on screen, Chorley added.<\/p>\n

He said he had learned to \u201cremember you\u2019re always on\u201d and to control his naturally emphatic hand movements, which can \u201clook crazy\u201d on screen. He also recalled an early Newsnight episode which had surprised viewers when Tim Stanley, a columnist at the Telegraph, winked at the camera<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis is just the beauty of live telly,\u201d he said. \u201cIt\u2019s a reminder that even when the camera is on the person who\u2019s talking, you might be in shot.\u201d<\/p>\n

Rea, who was on the receiving end of the stare, posted the clip on X to joke that she would \u201cplease like attention levels like this on my latest interview\u201d after sharing a link to her most recent reporting.<\/p>\n

The clip has turned into a meme online, with commenters imagining situations in which the stare could have taken place.<\/p>\n

The Larry the Cat social media account posted: \u201cWhen HR tells you that you need to listen better to female colleagues.\u201d<\/p>\n

Total Politics Group\u2019s chief executive, Mark Wallace, compared Stewart\u2019s behaviour to the comedian Kevin Eldon\u2019s surreal style, writing: \u201cThere\u2019s a high degree of Kevin Eldon energy to this. Magnificently strange.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Rory Stewart has been an Afghan NGO leader, a Conservative leadership candidate, a Harvard professor, a popular podcaster,…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":781325,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[59,57,58,50,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-781324","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-united-kingdom","tag-gb","tag-great-britain","tag-greatbritain","tag-news","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/781324","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=781324"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/781324\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/781325"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=781324"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=781324"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=781324"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}