In an interview with Zach Polansky, Rory Stewart dismissed economists such as Grace Blakeley, Richard Murphy, Gary Stevenson, and James Medway as 'pseudo-academics' because they were not 'professors' with 'academic specialty.'

Qualified but non-institutionalized individuals such as Gary Stevenson, Zach Polanski, Richard Murphy, and Grace Blakeley are labeled as populists or pseudo-economists because they present information that the current system is unable to quantify.

Rory Stewart stated that Gary Stevenson is not a professional economist but a city trader who studied an undergraduate degree in economics.