Portillo moment

Michael Portillo was first elected to the House of Commons to represent Enfield Southgate at a by-election in 1984.[1] The constituency included largely suburban areas on the west of the London Borough of Enfield. Portillo retained the seat at the 1987 general election, and won with a comfortable majority of 15,563 in the 1992 general election.

By 1997, Portillo was Secretary of State for Defence in the Conservative government. He had developed a reputation as one of the leading lights of the right wing of the Conservative Party, and was considered a possible candidate to follow John Major as party leader following the 1997 general election. The Labour Party candidate, Stephen Twigg – 30 years old, openly gay, and relatively unknown – was unlikely to be able to overturn Portillo's substantial majority. They had previously met when Portillo addressed Twigg's school during the latter's schooldays.[2]

The Conservatives held a small majority in the House of Commons following the 1992 general election, and remained in power for almost the maximum possible five years as their majority was gradually reduced at successive by-elections. Coming into the 1997 general election, Labour had held a substantial lead in the national polls for a considerable time, but Portillo's seat was still considered "safe". However, a poll in The Observer newspaper on the weekend before the election showed that Portillo held a lead of only three percentage points.[3]

After the polls had closed but before the result was formally announced, Portillo was interviewed live by Jeremy Paxman on BBC Television.[3] By that stage, exit poll results had been revealed predicting a Labour landslide nationally, and Portillo was privately aware of his possible defeat, although this was unknown to the public, who right up to the result were still expecting Portillo to be the next Tory leader. Portillo dismissed the national exit poll, but struggled to answer Paxman's question, "Are we seeing the end of the Conservative Party as a credible force in British politics?".[4]

At the local election HQ, Portillo remarked "Everyone around me, including the Labour workers, behaved towards me as though I'd been bereaved. They looked apologetic. I know I was a national figure of hate for Labour but you can only hate at a distance. The people in that room were Labour councillors that I'd worked with and liked. All evening, they treated me with courtesy and consideration".[3]

Twigg and the other candidates also knew the results shortly before the formal announcement. Twigg was shocked, but determined to keep a neutral expression during the announcement to maintain viewers' excitement to the last moment.[3]

The result was read out, showing that Twigg had won 20,570 votes against Portillo's 19,137, and thus had been elected MP. Portillo remarked in later interviews that he had regarded his defeat as a "blessing", since it eliminated him from the Tory leadership contest to replace John Major, and that he had no desire to lead a "rump party" which would likely be in opposition for at least two more parliamentary cycles.

The result in Enfield Southgate represented a 17.4% swing to Labour. Nationally, Labour won a landslide victory with a parliamentary majority of 179 seats. Other prominent Conservatives to lose their seats included Foreign Secretary Malcolm Rifkind, Trade Secretary Ian Lang, Chief Secretary to the Treasury William Waldegrave, Scottish Secretary Michael Forsyth and former ministers Edwina Currie, Norman Lamont, David Mellor and Neil Hamilton.

Twigg lost his seat to the Conservative David Burrowes in the 2005 general election, but he returned to the House of Commons in the 2010 general election as MP for the safe Labour seat of Liverpool West Derby, which he held until standing down in 2019, having served a total of over 17 years in Parliament, almost exactly the same as Portillo's combined service.

After losing Enfield Southgate in 1997, Portillo returned to the House of Commons in 1999, winning the by-election for Kensington and Chelsea following the death of Alan Clark. He served in the Shadow Cabinet as Deputy Leader and Shadow Chancellor, and stood as a candidate to become leader of the Conservative Party following the 2001 general election. He left the House of Commons at the 2005 general election.

In his acceptance speech, Twigg announced "there is no such thing as a no-go area for the Labour Party". Portillo was widely praised for his magnanimous response in his concession speech. Earlier that night, David Mellor had lost his seat at Putney, and was seen in a televised argument with the Referendum Party leader, Sir James Goldsmith.[5] Portillo was determined to lose with as much dignity as he could muster.[3]

The public rejection of Portillo came to symbolise the loss of the election, and continues to be referred to as the "Portillo moment". Following the 1997 election, people asked each other "Were you up for Portillo?", a question echoed in the title of a book published by Brian Cathcart in October 1997, which recounts the story of the election night from the point when polls closed at 10pm on 1 May 1997, entitled "Were You Still Up for Portillo?"[6] Portillo has joked that the moment was voted by Channel 4 viewers, and by Observer readers, as "their third favourite moment of the 20th century", one place ahead of the execution of Romanian President Nicolae Ceaușescu.[7] A Channel 4 list, compiled in 1999, put the Portillo moment third, behind the Apollo 11 Moon landing and the release of Nelson Mandela, and one place ahead of the death of Diana, Princess of Wales.

The term has become a metaphor for an indication of a sudden and significant change in political fortunes. In 2006, it was feared that changes to the voting legislation, requiring verification of postal votes, could end the chance of a "Portillo moment" by delaying the declaration of results on election night,[8] but in the 2010 general election it was reported that the Conservatives were seeking a "Portillo moment" to unseat the Secretary of State for Schools, later Shadow Chancellor, Ed Balls.[9] In the event, Balls avoided such an ignominious fate,[10] until 2015, when he was unseated from Morley and Outwood in what was the "Portillo moment" of the 2015 election.

Other subsequent examples include former Deputy Prime Minister and former leader of the Liberal Democrats, Nick Clegg, losing his Sheffield Hallam seat in the 2017 snap general election, and former First Minister of Scotland, and former leader of the SNP, Alex Salmond, losing Gordon at the same election. At the following election, in 2019, the incumbent Liberal Democrat leader, Jo Swinson, lost her East Dunbartonshire constituency to the SNP.

• Electoral history of Michael Portillo
• Enfield Southgate in the 1997 general election