Michael Portillo
 Michael Portillo     ( politician, broadcaster, journalist) | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
 | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Born | Michael Denzil Xavier Portillo 26 May 1953 Bushey, Hertfordshire, England, UK | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Alma mater | Peterhouse (Cambridge) | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Religion | Roman Catholic | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Spouse | Carolyn Eadie | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Member of | Ritual abuse/RAINS list, WEF/Global Leaders for Tomorrow/1993 | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Party | Conservative | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
WEF GLT 1993, UK Conservative politician turned broadcaster
| ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Michael Denzil Xavier Portillo is a British journalist, broadcaster, and former Conservative Party politician. His broadcast series include railway documentaries such as "Great British Railway Journeys" and "Great Continental Railway Journeys".
"Portillo moment"
Portillo unexpectedly lost the previously safe Conservative Enfield Southgate seat at the UK/General election/1997. This led to the coining of the expression "Portillo moment".
Returning to the House of Commons in the 1999 by-election in Kensington and Chelsea, Portillo rejoined the frontbench as Shadow Chancellor of the Exchequer.
Standing for the leadership of the party in 2001, Portillo came in third place behind Iain Duncan Smith and Kenneth Clarke. He retired from the Commons and from active politics at the 2005 General election.[1]
Return ticket to Cambridge
Having graduated in the mid-1970s from Peterhouse (Cambridge), Michael Portillo returned to Cambridge University nearly four decades later on one of his "Great British Railway Journeys". In Cambridge, Portillo revisited his former alma mater to hear from journalist Michael Smith about a treacherous time in its past. In Trinity Lane, he learned how during the 1930s, five alumni of Trinity College (Cambridge) were recruited to spy for the Soviet Union:
- MP: "The Cambridge spy ring notoriously infiltrated the UK's intelligence agencies and passed vital information to the Soviet Union during the Second World War and the early stages of the Cold War. Four were recruited while students at Trinity College and the fifth also studied at Trinity. I'm meeting author and journalist Michael Smith in Trinity Lane. Michael gave me a picture of the students in the 20s and 30s."
- MS: "Well student politics is almost always radical I think, and it was radical in those days. People saw Stalin's Soviet Union in a way we don't see it now, with hindsight. They saw it as the Brave New World, as everyone equal. And this has a real impact on Kim Philby, the first of the Cambridge Five to be recruited. He is determined to do something for communism. It is suggested by one of his tutors that he goes to Austria and he becomes involved with a young communist woman called Litzi Friedmann, who is actually a KGB courier. He marries her in fact and because Friedmann is a KGB courier – he doesn't know at the time – he's already in their system. And when he gets back to London, they recruit him and his handler says 'I want you to go back to Cambridge and come back to me with a list of people who think like us and would be willing to work for us.' Top of the list Donald Maclean, the second member of the Cambridge Five. Right down the bottom is a guy called Guy Burgess, the third member of the Cambridge Five. Burgess then brings his friend Anthony Blunt, and Burgess and Blunt between them worked together with the Russians to bring in the fifth man, John Cairncross."
- MP: "After graduating, the Cambridge Five rose to prominent positions within Britain's great offices of state and the security services. Interesting to me, I've scarcely heard of Cairncross, the fifth man."
- MS: "Yes, he's a fascinating character really, the only one who didn't go to public school of the five. He topped the entrance exam for the Foreign Office, which tells you how brilliant he was. The first real big thing he does is actually give these two documents to the KGB. Those documents were key to the weapons program. Then he goes to Bletchley Park, and he's walking out of the place with loads of documents stuffed down his trousers."
- MP: "Shortly before the end of the war, Philby was promoted to be the head of MI6's Soviet Section, which meant he was the ultimate 'double agent': in charge of running operations against the Soviets whilst being their spy. The thing that is most horrifying about this story is how long it takes to expose the Cambridge spies. Philby is left in position for decade after decade. Blunt is exposed in 1979, Caircross I think in the 1980s. Why are they not exposed earlier?"
- MS: "Because they were members of the 'Establishment'. They'd gone to the right schools, the right university. They couldn't possibly be a 'bad egg'."
- MP: "The members of the Cambridge spy ring were never prosecuted for their treason. I was already working for Margaret Thatcher's government in November 1979, when she announced to the nation that Sir Anthony Blunt was the fourth man. I remember feeling sick that there was now a fourth Cambridge spy. And what united those four was that they were all public school boys. They were all good types. And no matter how much evidence their espionage mounted up, it was all disregarded because no gentleman could be a Soviet spy!"[2]
BBC Question Time
| Portillo on sanctions (22:18:45 to 22:19:45) |
Appearing on "BBC Question Time" on 25 February 1988, Michael Portillo was asked whether he supported the imposition of economic sanctions against apartheid South Africa. His reply extends to just 60 seconds![3]
