Michael Portillo

The Right Honourable Michael Portillo
Shadow Chancellor of the Exchequer
In office 1 February 2000 – 18 September 2001
Leader	William Hague
Preceded by	Francis Maude
Succeeded by	Michael Howard
Secretary of State for Defence
In office 5 July 1995 – 2 May 1997
Prime Minister	John Major
Preceded by	Malcolm Rifkind
Succeeded by	George Robertson
Secretary of State for Employment
In office 20 July 1994 – 5 July 1995
Prime Minister	John Major
Preceded by	David Hunt
Succeeded by	Gillian Shephard (Education and Employment)
Chief Secretary to the Treasury
In office 11 April 1992 – 20 July 1994
Prime Minister	John Major
Preceded by	David Mellor
Succeeded by	Jonathan Aitken
Member of Parliament for Kensington and Chelsea
In office 25 November 1999 – 5 May 2005
Preceded by	Alan Clark
Succeeded by	Malcolm Rifkind
Member of Parliament for Enfield Southgate
In office 13 December 1984 – 1 May 1997
Preceded by	Anthony Berry
Succeeded by	Stephen Twigg
Personal details
Born	Michael Denzil Xavier Portillo (1953-05-26) 26 May 1953 Bushey, Hertfordshire, England, UK
Political party	None
Other political affiliations	Conservative
Spouse	Carolyn Eadie (1982–present)
Alma mater	Peterhouse, Cambridge
Website	www.michaelportillo.co.uk

Michael Denzil Xavier Portillo (born 26 May 1953) is a British journalist, broadcaster, and former Conservative Party politician and Cabinet Minister. Portillo was first elected to the House of Commons in a by-election in 1984; a strong admirer of Margaret Thatcher, and a Eurosceptic, Portillo served as a junior minister under both Thatcher and John Major, before entering the cabinet in 1992. Seen as a likely challenger to Major during the 1995 Conservative leadership election, he stayed loyal. As Defence Secretary, he pressed for a purist Thatcherite course of "clear blue water", separating the policies of the Conservatives from Labour.

Portillo unexpectedly lost his Enfield Southgate seat at the 1997 general election; political commentators believed he would have been elected Conservative leader had he retained it. Returning to the Commons through a by-election in Kensington and Chelsea in 1999, Portillo rejoined the front bench as Shadow Chancellor, although his relationship with Conservative Leader William Hague was strained. Standing for the leadership of the party in 2001, Portillo came a narrow third place behind Iain Duncan Smith and Kenneth Clarke. Portillo retired from the Commons at the 2005 general election, and has since pursued his media interests, presenting a wide range of television and radio programmes.

Early life and career

Portillo was born in Bushey, Hertfordshire to an exiled Spanish republican father, Luis Gabriel Portillo (1907–1993). and a Scottish mother, Cora (née Blyth), whose father, John Blyth, was a prosperous linen mill owner from Kirkcaldy. An early brush with fame came in 1961 when Portillo starred in a television advertisement for Ribena, a blackcurrant cordial drink. He was educated at Stanburn Primary School in Stanmore, Middlesex, and Harrow County School for Boys and then won a scholarship to Peterhouse, Cambridge, where he met Maurice Cowling.

Portillo graduated in 1975 with a first-class degree in history, and after a brief stint with Ocean Transport and Trading Co., a freight firm, he joined the Conservative Research Department in 1976. Following the Conservative victory in 1979 he became a government adviser. He left to work for Kerr-McGee Oil from 1981–1983 and fought his first, unsuccessful, election in the 1983 general election, in the Labour-held seat of Birmingham Perry Barr, losing to Jeff Rooker.

Portillo has been married to Carolyn Eadie since 1982.

Member of Parliament

Portillo returned to advisory work for the government and in December 1984 he stood for and won the Enfield Southgate by-election following the murder of the incumbent, Sir Anthony Berry, in the bombing by the IRA of the Grand Hotel in Brighton.

Portillo retained the Enfield Southgate seat until 1997. Initially he was a Parliamentary Private Secretary to John Moore and then an assistant whip. In 1987 he was made under secretary for social security, in 1988 he was given his first ministerial post as Minister of State for Transport. He has claimed that "saving the Settle to Carlisle railway was his greatest achievement in politics."

He then held the local government portfolio (1990), arguing in favour of the ultimately highly unpopular Community Charge system (popularly known as Poll Tax). He demonstrated a consistently right-of-centre line (exemplified by his insistence, in a well-publicised speech, of placing 'clear blue water' between the policies of the Conservatives and other parties) and was favoured by Norman Tebbit and Margaret Thatcher. His rise continued under John Major; he was made a Cabinet Minister as Chief Secretary to the Treasury (1992), and admitted to the Privy Council the same year. Portillo subsequently held the portfolios of Employment (1994) and then Defence (1995–1997).

His high profile led to constant attention from the media, including Private Eye, which mockingly referred to him as "Portaloo". He was accused of vanity when the Alexandra Palace was hired to celebrate his ten years in politics.

Some saw the Defence Secretary post as a reward for his cautious loyalty to Major during the 1995 leadership challenge of John Redwood, following Major's "back me or sack me" resignation as party leader. Many urged Portillo to run against Major, and he set up a potential campaign headquarters with banks of telephone lines. He later admitted that this was an error; "I did not want to oppose [Major], but neither did I want to close the possibility of entering a second ballot if it came to that." His opponents within the party later used Portillo's apparent equivocation as an example of his indecisiveness, and he acknowledged that "ambiguity is unattractive".

As Defence Secretary Portillo invited criticism by invoking the motto of the SAS, "Who Dares, Wins", at a speech at the Conservative Party annual conference.

1997 election defeat

Portillo's loss of the Enfield Southgate seat in the 1997 general election to Stephen Twigg came as a shock to many politicians and commentators, and came to symbolise the extent of the Labour landslide victory. There had been a poll in The Observer newspaper on the weekend before the election which showed that Portillo held only a three point lead in his hitherto safe seat.

He had a memorable interview with Jeremy Paxman on the election night prior to the calling of his own seat and was stumped by the question of "Are we seeing the end of the Conservative Party as a credible force in British politics?". He has since admitted that he knew he had lost his seat by the time of the interview:

I saw that the exit poll was predicting a 160 seat majority for Labour. I thought, "when is Paxman going to ask me have I lost my seat?", because I deduced from that that I had. I then drove the car to my constituency and I knew I'd lost. But I also saw David Mellor. David Mellor had this really bad tempered spat with Jimmy Goldsmith [after the Putney election results had been announced]. I saw this and I thought if there's one thing I do when I lose, I'm going to lose with as much dignity as I can muster and not be like this David Mellor—Goldsmith thing.

Portillo's defeat represented a 17.4% swing to Labour. Although Twigg retained the seat with an increased majority in 2001, it returned to the Conservative Party in 2005 with a swing of 8.7%.

'Portillo moment'

The 1997 loss, symbolising the loss of the election by the Conservative Party, has been referred to as "the Portillo moment", and in the cliché "Were you up for Portillo?" (i.e., "Were you awake/did you see Portillo's result announced on television?") Portillo himself commented, thirteen years later, that as a consequence "My name is now synonymous with eating a bucketload of shit in public."

Return to the House of Commons

After the election, Portillo renewed his attachment to Kerr McGee but also undertook substantial media work including programmes for the BBC and Channel 4. He also seemed to be moving in his expressed opinions more towards the centre-right.

Portillo (left) being interviewed by Nick Robinson in 2001

In an interview with The Times given in the summer of 1999, Portillo admitted that "I had some homosexual experiences as a young person." A few weeks after he had given this interview, the death of Alan Clark gave Portillo the opportunity to return to Parliament, despite Lord Tebbit accusing Portillo of lying about the extent of his sexual "deviance", and similar comments from an associate included in a profile of Portillo in the Guardian newspaper. He comfortably won the by-election in late November 1999 to represent Kensington and Chelsea, traditionally one of the safest Conservative seats.

On 1 February 2000, William Hague promoted Portillo to the Shadow Cabinet as Deputy Leader and Shadow Chancellor. On 3 February Portillo stood opposite the Chancellor of the Exchequer, Gordon Brown, in the House of Commons for the first time in his new role. During this session, Portillo made two significant announcements:

• The next Conservative Government will respect the independence of the Bank of England and will legislate to enhance that independence and increase accountability to Parliament
• The next Conservative Government will not repeal the national minimum wage

Bid for party leadership and retirement from politics

Main article: Conservative Party (UK) leadership election, 2001

Following the 2001 general election Portillo contested the leadership of the party. In the first ballot of Conservative MPs, he led well. However, there followed press stories including veiled (and not-so-veiled) references to his previous homosexual experiences and to his equivocation at the time of Major's 1995 resignation. He was knocked out in the final round of voting by Conservative MPs, leaving party members to choose between Iain Duncan Smith and Kenneth Clarke, the gay aspects of his past - according to Clarke - having damaged his chances.

When Duncan Smith was elected leader, Portillo returned to the backbenches. In March 2003 he voted in favour of the 2003 invasion of Iraq. In November 2003, having turned down an offer of a Shadow Cabinet post from the incoming Conservative leader Michael Howard, Portillo announced that he would not seek re-election, and he left the House of Commons at the 2005 general election. His membership of the Conservative Party has since lapsed and he is no longer a party member.

Business interests

In September 2002, Portillo became a non-executive director of the defence company BAE Systems plc. He stepped down from that position in March 2006 owing to potential conflicts of interest. He was a member of the board of the Kerr-McGee Corporation for a few months in 2006.

Media career

1998 saw Portillo make his first foray into broadcasting on Channel 4 - Portillo's Progress - three one hour long programmes looking into the changed social and political scene in Britain. From 2002 onwards, Portillo developed an active career in media, both as a commentator on public affairs and as a writer and/or presenter of TV and radio documentaries.

Since 2003, Portillo has appeared in the BBC weekly political discussion programme This Week with Andrew Neil and, until September 2010, Labour MP Diane Abbott. Portillo has known Abbott for many years: they both attended schools in the London Borough of Harrow, Portillo and Abbott were in a joint school production of Romeo and Juliet, though not in the title roles. Later, whilst still at school, Portillo cast Abbott in a film version of Macbeth, but the film was never completed. She played Lady Macduff to his Macduff

Portillo has featured in a number of television documentaries, including one on Richard Wagner, of whose music he is a fan, and two on Spain (he is a fluent Spanish speaker): Great Railway Journeys: From Granada to Salamanca for BBC Two (2002), and a programme on Spanish wildlife for BBC Two's The Natural World series (2006). He took over for one week the life, family and income of a single mother living on benefits in Wallasey.

He chose to present Queen Elizabeth I for the BBC's series of Great Britons in 2002. Between 2002 and 2007 he presented a discussion series, "Dinner with Portillo", on BBC Four, in which political and social questions are explored by Portillo and his seven guests, over a four-course meal. His guests included Bianca Jagger, Grayson Perry, Francis Wheen, Seymour Hersh, PD James, Baroness Williams, George Galloway, Benazir Bhutto and Germaine Greer.

He is a long-serving member of the panel in the BBC Radio Four series The Moral Maze.

In 2007, he participated in the BBC television project The Verdict, serving, with other well-known figures, as a jury member hearing a fictional rape case. He was elected the jury's foreman.

The documentary How To Kill A Human Being, in the Horizon series, featured Portillo carrying out a survey of capital punishment methods (including undertaking some near death experiences himself) in an attempt to find an 'acceptable' form. It was broadcast on BBC Two on 15 January 2008. He made a second Horizon documentary, entitled How Violent Are You?, which was broadcast on 12 May 2009.

Portillo was the Chairman of the committee choosing the 2008 Man Booker Prize. He also interviewed clients of the French corporation Capgemini in a video publicity series.

In 2008 Portillo made a documentary as part of the BBC Headroom campaign (which explores mental health issues). Portillo's documentary 'Death of a School Friend' explores how the suicide of Portillo's classmate Gary Findon affected Findon's parents, brother, music teachers, school teachers, classmates, and Portillo himself. The programme was originally broadcast on Friday 7 November 2008.

In 2009, Portillo appeared in the second episode of the second series of The Supersizers eat... to discuss medieval cuisine and Magna Carta. Filmed in 2009 but first broadcast 4 January 2010, Portillo presented Great British Railway Journeys in which he explored, with the aid of George Bradshaw's 1863 tourist handbook, how the railways had a profound influence on the social, economic and political history of Britain. A second series was broadcast on BBC2 during 2011 and the third series followed a year later on the same channel in January 2012, with a fourth series later broadcasting January 2013. A similar series shown in November and December 2012, Great Continental Railway Journeys, follows Portillo around Europe.

In September 2011 he presented a two-part series on BBC Radio 4 entitled Capitalism on Trial. He has also presented a historical series on BBC Radio Four called "The Things We Forgot to Remember".

Portillo has written a regular column for The Sunday Times, contributes to other journals (he was a theatre critic for the New Statesman until May 2006), and is a regular radio broadcaster in the UK.In June 2013, he presented a fifteen-minute programme (following The World at One) on Radio Four called "1913 - the Year Before" about the state of Britain in the years preceding The First World War, challenging the view that these years were all optimistic and cheerful years.

Charitable and voluntary activities

Since 1998, Portillo has been a Commissioner of the International Commission on Missing Persons (ICMP). He is a trustee of the charity The Parliamentary Committee Against Anti-Semitism, and also President of DebRA, a British national charity working on behalf of people with epidermolysis bullosa (EB), a genetic skin blistering condition.

Portillo is the British chairman of the Anglo-Spanish organisation Tertulias, which organises annual meetings between the two countries. He is also a Vice President of Canning House, the Hispanic & Luso Brazilian Council.

Arts Endowment Fund

On 4 July 2011 it was announced that Portillo will chair a new £55m Arts Endowment Fund, to be supported by the Arts Council, the Heritage Lottery Fund and the Department for Culture, Media and Sport. Applicants will be able to bid for grants of between £500,000 and £5m, which must be matched from the private sector.

See also

• Electoral history of Michael Portillo

Further reading

• Michael Gove, (1995), "Michael Portillo: The Future of the Right" ISBN 1-85702-335-8
• Michael Gove, (2000), "Michael Portillo", Fourth Estate, 448 pages, ISBN 1-84115-363-X (paperback)

External links

• Official website
• Hansard 1803–2005: contributions in Parliament by Michael Portillo
• Portillo's columns for The Sunday Times
• Guardian Unlimited Politics Ask Aristotle – Michael Portillo
• They Work For You – Michael Portillo
• The Public Whip – Michael Portillo voting record
• Harrow County Grammar School
• Michael Portillo at IMDb