Three years ago I co-edited a book of political counterfactuals with Duncan Brack called PRIME MINISTER PORTILLO AND OTHER THINGS THAT NEVER HAPPENED. I wrote the title chapter, which looked at what might have happened if Michael Portillo hadn't lost his seat in 1997. Here's the intro...
‘You do know you’re in trouble, Michael, don’t you?’ whispered the particularly conspiratorial voice of Peter Mandelson as they left the BBC election night studios. ‘Well, it’s certainly not going to be the majority I’m used to,’ responded the outgoing Defence Secretary.
As he got into his waiting car outside the TV Centre studios the last thing Michael Portillo wanted was to hear the excited babble of his loyal assistants as they argued with each other over the scale of the coming onslaught in the country. After all, it wasn’t exactly his fault, was it? For the first time he began to feel a sense of impending doom. Surely he couldn’t lose. Could he? After all, Enfield would return a donkey if it sported a blue rosette. His campaign team had berated him for not spending more time in the constituency, but just how could he manage that when he was expected up and down the country twenty-four hours a day? After all, he wasn’t superman, no matter what his more zealous supporters might think.
It was already clear that Labour had won – and won big. Just how big was big, though? What kind of rump of a Conservative Parliamentary Party would be left? And would they be leadable? He was sure John Major would immediately step down, so now his moment had come...
To read the full story click HERE.
16 comments:
I've actually got that book. The ione that stood out for me was about Callaghan calling an election in 1978.
Utter tosh. The whole premise of your essay is that the Tories were unpopular because of what Hague did or didn't do. The reality was that the country had turned against the Conservatives and whoever they had as leader would be villified. Also in realty Portillo lost his seat despite his public profile because he was so closely associated with Major's hapless administration - and this is something that wouldn't have changed if he became leader. Perhaps Portillo or Clarke might have been better than Hague but only as a sponge to absorb all the hatred while Hague (still the most talented of all the Tories) could have kept his power dry for a bit longer.
Methinks Iain was typing this one-handed.
It's dreadfully hot with this beard, and your article is too long to sit and read.
Peter Lilley & Michael Portillo? Ewww!
I think I might have to buy that book. I do have a weakness for counterfactuals, and Niall Ferguson's 'Virtual History' is quite excellent. I'm also a fellow fan of Roberts' 'Aachen Memorandum'.
Portillo will return and ensure your title is incorrect.
What if ukip or BNP asked him to lead their parties OR more possible he forged a new party from all the right of centre
parties/groups etc.
He is well espected out here in the third world (west country) and my friends in the other rural parts of this country of ours think highly of him too.
Portillo to lead new party in 2009 (strangely when the tories implode over the EU)
I don't buy it. Portillo really was a hate figure in 97 and it took his loss and subsequent wilderness years to rehabilitate him. A more realistic scenario would have been for him to return to parliament in 2001, challenge Hague for the leadership and then win the next election with a raft of inclusive policies.
sorry I can't see the answer of the most important question: if Portillo had become PM, who would have sat near Diane on This Week's sofa?!
Dodonline, er, it's a counterfactual, not a serous attempt to rewrite history!
Strapworld, I think you need to lie down in a dark room.
portillo made himself out to be the extreme ultra right thatcherite. a total eurosceptic he was one of those "bastards". little did we know he was actually bi sexual and it seems a damn sight more liberal than he made out having faked the authoritarian look to rise through the tory ranks. in working his way into a position of power he became as hated as the rest of the tories.
It is plausible to imagine Portillo just holding on in 1997; Twiggy, as the last GE proved, needed LD votes to overwhelm the basic Tory core in Southgate. The leadership contest would have been interesting; Lilley wouldn't have stood, certainly, but Hague might still have been a formidable operator. I can still imagine Hague and Portillo in bitter conflict in 2000-01, with Hague as the impatient modernising shadow Chancellor instead.
heh, it's fuuny but as I read that I recalled the first time I read it. I never bought the book you see, I did the Starbucks/Borders thing one day and only mangted to read the first chapter. I didn't even pay attention to who the author was back then either.
The starngest thing is that whilst I can remember the book I didn't buy that day I can't for the life of me remeber the one I did buy.
'Some books are deservedly forgotten; none are undeservedly remembered'
Who would have sat next to Diane on the This Week sofa? Well, they've tried Ken Clarke.
I can't quite see UKIP or the BNP electing the bisexual, half Spanish son of an asylum seeker as their leader.
If, on the other hand, we have PR, it's less far-fetched to see Portillo as the leader of a merger of the Orange Book Liberal Democrats and the modernising wing of the Conservative Party (the Portillistas and Cameroons).
But even that scenario overlooks how comfortable Portillo is in his new role as elder statesman and national treasure rolled into one. He already has a political heir in Cameron, with his liberal views on drugs, his combination of Euroscepticism and domestic centrist noises, and determination to get more women selected as Tory candidates.
I bought this book. Like all the better counterfactual histories (or Alternate Histories as they are also called), they actually allow you to have a clearer idea of what really happened by illustrating what could have happened.
I remember the Portillo chapter quite well. One question for its author however: IIRC, the Tory returns for 1997 were 167 seats (or was it 169? Depressingly low either way), but in your article you put them at 191. So that means there must have been a last minute gasp for the Tories to hold on to those additional 15 or so seats, including Portillo. What factors, if anything, did you alter, if only slightly to get these results?
Other then that, the policies and steps mentioned in your story were cool, and should have been done regardless in any time-line, such as getting Ken Clark on the Shadow Cabinet and PR in local elections.
Also agree the Ecclestone events was under-used by Tories, and even more so the Geffrey Robinson- Peter Mandelson scandal: here was a guy who was effectively made minister becasue he bought Mandelson a flat, or that should have been the Tory spin anyway, with the Leader of the Opposition demanding to know what was the price-list in the Blair government? We knew how much it cost to be a Paymaster General, so how much to be Home Secretary? Or Chancellour?
Fans of Alternate Histories might want to read the work of Harry Turtledove, especially Ruled Britannia, 1597, the Spanish Armada won and under the rule of Catholic Kings, a conspiracy to free ELisabeth from the Tower is hatched, with Will Shakespeare and Chris Marlowe at the centre...
A game where you can run for the Tory leadership of 1990
http://www.lonympics.co.uk/Coooool/fantsayleadership.htm
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