How to come back again from a Portillo second – by MICHAEL PORTILLO
The moment is seared on my mind, not to mention captured in a thousand videos on social media.
It shows me in the small hours of May 2, 1997 – 3.01am to be precise – standing alongside my fellow election candidates, with my features arranged into as neutral an expression as I could muster.
I knew by then the returning officer was about to announce my resounding defeat at the hands of the Labour Party candidate Stephen Twigg, unseating me not only as MP for Enfield Southgate but as a serving Cabinet minister.
It was a dramatic change. I had won the previous election in 1992 with a comfortable majority of 15,563 but now languished behind my Labour rival by nearly 1,500 votes, an 18 per cent swing that was a pivotal indication that, after 18 years of Conservative rule, Labour would win the election.
It meant, to my surprise – and later amusement – the phrase ‘Portillo moment’ would enter the lexicon as a metaphor for a sudden, significant change in political fortunes.
Michael Portillo says he can now see the funny side of the iconic ‘Portillo moment’ which has taken on a life of its own and is now used to describe significant change in political fortunes
Portillo in the small hours of the morning waiting for the returning officer to announce his defeat to Labour’s Stephen Twigg
Well, we certainly had plenty of those on Thursday night/Friday morning. Indeed, it would almost be swifter to list the Tory big beasts who were not felled by their constituents, among them the Chancellor Jeremy Hunt, who – in what I would style a ‘reverse Portillo moment’ –held on to his seat by the slenderest of margins despite widespread expectation that he would lose it.
No such luck for Leader of the Commons Penny Mordaunt, Defence Secretary Grant Shapps, Education Secretary Gillian Keegan, veterans minister Johnny Mercer, Sir Jacob Rees-Mogg and many, many others.
They will have woken bleary-eyed yesterday morning to confront the reality of life stripped not only of political title but, to some degree, their identity. As I can testify, it is a discombobulating experience.
Perhaps none suffered a more startling Portillo moment than Liz Truss, a woman who just 620 days ago was prime minister but who now finds herself a civilian again, after a record-breaking 25.9 per cent swing against her in the once true-blue constituency of South West Norfolk.
I recognised in Truss’s rictus smile the horror of someone undergoing a wounding humiliation on a national stage. Had Truss prepared herself for it? I, at least, had some time to confront the fact that I might have been about to stare into the political abyss: polls had been gloomy enough for one journalist to ask on election eve if I had thought about defeat and, if so, how I would hope to face up to it.
My spur of the moment answer was ‘to keep my dignity’ and, having said that, I became determined to live up to it if I could.
Many do not know that politicians are not quite as caught by surprise by the result on the night as the cameras suggest. Prior to the public announcement, candidates are told the outcome of the poll by the returning officer to avoid the chance of any unseemly scuffles or objections once the cameras are rolling.
William Hague and Portillo thanking party workers after storming to victory
Portillo, the Defence Secretary under John Major’s leadership, leaving Downing Street
The MP for Enfield Southgate on the campaign trail in Edinburgh, battling against Scottish Nationalists
All of us are asked if we are happy to accept the result. ‘Ecstatically,’ I replied that night in 1997, which raised a smile among my rivals.
So I was prepared – to a degree. But that does not make the moment of defeat any less crushing. While Stephen Twigg was wholly gracious in victory and Labour councillors were courteous and kind, it is far from easy to face the fact that a large number of people have made it clear via the ballot box how much they dislike you.
My politics were partly responsible but it was also clear I had become something of a hate figure: many people viscerally loathed me. You would have to be a Tin Man not to feel at least a little wounded.
For all that, there was also a modicum of relief behind my thrashing, for victory would have been a bittersweet pill to swallow. Had I won, I would have been expected to contest the Conservative Party leadership, a prospect that held no attraction for me. It would have involved a mass of colleagues spoiling for a fight against the sobering backdrop of now being in opposition. I suspect for all the shock of their dethroning, people such as Penny Mordaunt – like me tipped as a future Tory leader and whom I felt to be gracious in defeat – may also be breathing a small sigh of relief even as she licks her wounds.
Even so, many Tories who have lost their seats face a difficult few weeks. Politicians are so defined by their jobs, with both a packed timetable and a ringside seat in one of the world’s greatest political arenas. Suddenly, all that is gone.
It takes a while to sink in, a period that for me was initially characterised by an acute sense of self-consciousness. Having never given a second thought to boarding public transport – I’d always travelled to my North London constituency by Underground – I suddenly felt convinced that people were making fun of me behind my back.
There were many ‘Portillo moments’ on election night with many cabinet members losing their seats as Sir Keir Starmer (pictured) swept into Downing Street
Penny Mordaunt, former leader of the Commons, had her own ‘Portillo moment’ as she was booted out as MP of Portsmouth North
It took a while for the feeling to subside. I feel grateful those moments were not immortalised by smartphone cameras, social media memes or unkind online comments.
Today’s candidates must live out their defeat in a far more brutal arena: the brickbats I received will be experienced by losing candidates many times over on thousands of different forums.
M y first instinct was to recover my political career. At the Tory party conference in October, five months after our election defeat, I made a well-received speech setting out what I felt we needed to do to rehabilitate ourselves in the public arena.
Two years later, I returned to the House of Commons after winning the by-election for Kensington and Chelsea following the death of the incumbent Alan Clark, and served as Shadow Chancellor.
I finally left the House of Commons at the 2005 general election. By then, I had a burgeoning media career that took me away from politics and for which I am profoundly grateful.
I could certainly not have envisaged any of it in the first few bewildering days after my election defeat, nor that, years later, my defeat would be voted by Channel 4 viewers their ‘third favourite moment of the 20th century’ – just ahead of the 1989 execution of the Romanian tyrant Nicolae Ceausescu. What an honour!
We can only wait and see whether the fates of Ms Truss et al are similarly rewarded.
Either way, the phrase ‘Portillo moment’ remains mine alone, a turn of events about which I can now finally see the funny side.
The author presents Sunday With Michael Portillo on GB News.
