Portillo as Conservative Leader?

Does he not lose his seat in 1997, and thus maintain his stature in the party? Or is this the Portillo that emerged post-electoral defeat?

Broadly speaking... I think that, either way, not too much changes. Portillo might pick up a few more seats in the general election, but Howard didn't do a terrible job as party leader and I think that the tories did rather well for themselves (certainly better than the last time around). A better-directed campaign may fare better, but Blair still takes home a majority, I think.

No, the really interesting thing is if Portillo is elected tory party leader after his revelations and policy shifts. Winning out against the extreme of the party would have been no mean feat, and one wonders where he would have taken the Tories.
 
If he won, I think he would do better than IDS, and about the same as Howard did. So, meaning he would have 2001 to 2003 to build a better base and prevent infighting with the Tory party during the period.

A key issue is which way he swung on Iraq.... *IF* he was anti-war, I could see:

2005 Result - Labour 336
Conservatives - 225
Lib Dems - 55
Other - 30

Labour majority 26 and we have an interesting 2005-2010 parliament, possibly with Blair going in 2006.

If he wasn't anti-war, he'll do better than OTL, but not that much better.
Say:
2005 Result - Labour 346
Conservatives - 208
Lib Dems - 62
Other - 30

Labour majority of 46. Safer than option 1, but still a little hairy for Blair. He might go earlier.

Option 1 is more interesting, especially if (and it is a BIG if), that Labour majority might be a bit less (say < 20). By-elections, resignations, scandals and the like could see a vote of no confidence being won.
 

Al-Buraq

Banned
He would have brought a bit more Gaity to Cabinet debates. He "came out" in 1999 wich scotched his chances of winning the Tory leadership.
Now he spends his time riding on trains, like Tom Driberg.
 
A key issue is if his "homosexual experiences as a young person" come out, while Labour and the Lib Dems aren't going to be able to attack him the likes of Lord Tebbit are going to go through the roof having a "deviant" as their leader. If he has OTL moves towards the centre you could get a bigger and stronger UKIP but if his skeletons stay "in the closet" and he sticks to the right you might butterfly away UKIP entirely.
 
He would have brought a bit more Gaity to Cabinet debates. He "came out" in 1999 wich scotched his chances of winning the Tory leadership.
Now he spends his time riding on trains, like Tom Driberg.

Nice spot of homophobia there.
 

Al-Buraq

Banned
Nice spot of homophobia there.

Not so much Homophobia as Humbugphobia.
Homosexuals who are open about their choices of lifestyle regardless of the social consequences can be admired. Those who cover it up to gain advantages in life cannot be and if they can't make a decision--should they be trusted with a position of responsibility?
 
He would have brought a bit more Gaity to Cabinet debates. He "came out" in 1999 wich scotched his chances of winning the Tory leadership.
Now he spends his time riding on trains, like Tom Driberg.

Portillo has one or two bi-curious experiences in uni and all of a sudden he's the equal of a hardcore sex addict/security risk?

How do you explain how his OTL youthful love life never stopped him from becoming SECRETARY OF STATE FOR DEFENCE. (BTW, one of MP's very close friends in student politics was Alexander Downer, future Australian foreign minister. If Downer hadn't quite politics last year he might now be leader of the federal Opposition. There's never been any sort of whispering campaign against Downer, even if he was always mocked for his plummy accent.)

Yup, obviously Michael Portillo is nothing but Tom Driberg reborn.
 

Al-Buraq

Banned
Portillo has one or two bi-curious experiences in uni and all of a sudden he's the equal of a hardcore sex addict/security risk?

How do you explain how his OTL youthful love life never stopped him from becoming SECRETARY OF STATE FOR DEFENCE. (BTW, one of MP's very close friends in student politics was Alexander Downer, future Australian foreign minister. If Downer hadn't quite politics last year he might now be leader of the federal Opposition. There's never been any sort of whispering campaign against Downer, even if he was always mocked for his plummy accent.)

Yup, obviously Michael Portillo is nothing but Tom Driberg reborn.

1/. Portillo revealed his 'youthful indiscretions' well after he ceased having a cabinet position.
2/. Evidence (including the boyfriend) emerged that he had been less than truthful and had been in a 'gay' relationship for eight years. Had this just been a rumour, he may have sued for libel. He didn't and faded out of politics. This raises a question not about his sexuality, but about his probity. (He really was within an ace of becoming Conservative Leader).
3/.Portillo is currently hosting a TV documentary series about train journeys. I am sure that you have read Francis Wheen's biography on Driberg and his interest in railway journeys.

There have been plenty of Homosexuals, Pederasts, Deviants, Transvestites etc. in all political parties, perhaps a higher percentage than in other walks of life as the scheming and bitchiness of politics appears to suit a certain type of person and in the days when Homosexual activity was illegal it is understandable that either they hid it or had the friends in high places cover things up ( Driberg, Boothby, Channon, Roseberry, Pitt, Disraeli perhaps). Society has come a long way since Churchill said of Driberg (or was it Channon?) "He is the type of chap that gives sodomy a bad name", but is mainstream society ready to accept an openly homosexual Prime Minister and a dishonest one at that?
Some known homosexuals in public life lead exemplarary lives, such as Peter Mandelson. No sham marriage and no getting nicked on Hampstead Heath with teenage guardsmen like Labour's Ron Davis.

I am not familiar with Alexander Downer's career, but I would guess than any Ozzie that doesn't talk like Paul Hogan would be on Barry MacKenzie's list!
 
It would have been an absolute disaster. And I'm coming at that from a reasonably friendly perspective.

First things first, Portillo's thirst for the job itself had seriously waned by 2001. He quit frontline politics after this, but he was already tiring of it before the 2001 contest - there were a lot of stories milling about in 2000 that he was going to quit as Shadow Chancellor. So his heart just wouldn't be in it - unless of course he recovers a burst of political adrenaline through attaining the prize. But I don't think this is likely, for reasons that I'll come onto in a moment.

In fact his 2001 campaign was such a shambles that I have often suspected that Portillo himself deliberately mishandled it. But whether it was deliberate or not is beside the point. He got within one vote of going into the membership vote. Just one. If one of Duncan-Smith's supporters had voted the other way, it would have been him versus Clarke. So not a difficult thing to do.

Leaving aside who would win in such a contest (Personally, I think a 2001 Portillo-Clarke contest is the only time Clarke would have had a genuine chance of winning in the face of someone more disliked and distrusted than he) and putting Portillo into the leadership, though, the main problem would be that by 2001 the right absolutely despised Portillo. Hated him. This wasn't just because of his transformation into a moderniser and all that went with it, but because his supporters had been positioning him, none too subtely in most instances, as the next leader for about two years. There had been a whirlwind of briefing between Hague's office and Portillo's. Very stark personal loyalties had been drawn. It got very, very nasty and very messy, and Portillo came from it looking opportunistic and disloyal and alienating a huge tranche of people who had got the shit end of the stick from his supporters. The shadow cabinet was basically at war with itself for two years leading up to 2001 and it was all pretty ripe stuff.

So it would have been very much like IDS - but with the right constantly trying to undermine the leader rather than the modernising left as per OTL. Tbh, I can see Portillo just resigning after a year or two in the face of the vitriol. Would he be able to restore some faith in the Tories with the public? Probably moreso than IDS, but in the face of such inevitable division and bickering, not by a lot.

Would Michael Howard become leader post-bellum? Probably not - but that could be a mixed bag. Would the Tories go into Iraq sounding even more hawkish than the Bush administration? Probably not. But a Portillo leadership wouldn't do anything for party unity or the cause of modernisation which Portillo was by that time championing. Would David Cameron be leader now, rather than David Davis or Liam Fox? Probably not.
 
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It's maybe a little more interesting to speculate upon the effect of Portillo retaining his seat in 1997 and then going onto win the subsequent leadership election. Portillo is thought to begun his move to the modernising centre as a result of the shock of losing his seat - arguably if he didn't lose it then this would never have happened or at least not to the same extent. If I remember correctly he only lost Enfield Southgate by 1000 votes - so one of three things could save him:

- a slightly better national campaign which prevents Labour's landslide from turning into a complete rout;
- Portillo realising he was in trouble in his constituency earlier and spending more time in the seat;
- the local Conservative association not selling its HQ to McDonalds, which was quite controversial and lost the party a good few votes.

Anyhow, he only needs 500 votes to switch from Labour and he's back in. John Major is still going to resign even with a slightly better result so the leadership race proceeds as in real life. The received wisdom at the time was that Portillo would walk the election. The Tory Party has a habit of turning on its favourites but provided that he makes it to the final round with Clark - I can't see Hague or Lilley standing if Portillo is, Redwood and Howard may still stand but, for the latter especially, it's iffy - he should win, given the predominance of the Eurosceptic Right in the party at this stage.

What happens after this? Undoubtedly he has more experience from Hague and will avoid some of the clumsy stunts he pulled - baseball caps anyone - and he can probably avoid some of the sniping from the Right that came Hague's way, at least initially. However he will still face trouble from Ken Clarke, Michael Heseltine and the left of the Tory Party in general, especially if he's more explicitly anti-Euro than Hague (none of this 'ruling out the Euro for two parliaments business'). You've also got to remember that Portillo, although loved by the Tory grassroots, wasn't liked at all by the public. He and Michael Howard were probably the two most unpopular senior ministers in John Major's Cabinet. Plus Blair is still going through his extended honeymoon and the economy is likely to be chuntering along just fine, so you can add that up to the Conservatives doing a bit better than in real life, but not an awful lot.

Possibly another factor to mention is that the rumours of Portillo's homosexual experiences had been floating around for a long time prior to his 'coming out' interview in 1999. It's not beyond belief that a paper like the Mirror or the Sun could go digging and find something. If Portillo remains on the right of the party, it's not beyond belief that a gay rights group may try and 'out' him. There's a possibility then that he could be forced to resign during the midterm, with Hague, Howard or maybe even Clarke replacing him.

On a related issue, something that seems rarely to have been the subject of speculation is if Michael Howard won in 1997. He did come last IRL, but he and William Hague had formed a pact, with Howard being leader and Hague his deputy, until Hague backed out at the last minute and started his own campaign. If Hague had never backed out, there's a good chance that Howard might have consolidated the right of the party behind him and beaten Clarke for the leadership.
 
It's maybe a little more interesting to speculate upon the effect of Portillo retaining his seat in 1997 and then going onto win the subsequent leadership election.

*Interesting stuff snipped*

The problem with Portillo winning in 1997 (after retaining his seat) is that Blair's majority is so complete (although it would be only 177 at most I suppose in this ATL) that whomever is leader is going to lose in 2001. Unless that defeat is only marginal (and I cannot see how anyone can pull this one back, no matter how good the leader), that leader may find himself out on his ear come July 2001 anyway.

Winning the 1997 Conservative party leadership is a poison chalice. Only way they can come back is:

1. Very electable leader (Portillo *might* fit this bill, but probably not)
2. Getting rid of Blair somehow and replacing with complete loser at the head of the Labour party (No alternative leaders at the time are as good as Blair I think, but none are completely useless either. Brown would probably manage a win in 2001).
 
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Well, let's say the Tories pull off an exemplary campaign in 1997, while Labour's is an absolute shambles. Labour gets in with a majority of 140 seats regardless, and even this is following a worst case scenario. On the other hand though, Portillo keeps his seat.

Now, as others have pointed out, the Conservatives cannot win in 2001, unless Blair personally murders a team of attractive nurses. Even then, it's implausible. But I do think that Portillo is likely to do rather better than Hague, who managed a net gain of a single seat. For the sake of argument, Portillo manages a net gain of about twenty five seats. Portillo himself sees this as a disaster and immediately resigns, but importantly, Labour is denied an absolute super majority in 2001, especially if the Liberals and Celtic nationalists make some advance. Blair gets back into office with a handsome but not overwhelming majority of 80ish.

This can have major ramifications for Iraq. If for whatever reason the war fails to get Conservative support (which senior figures were involved?) we're unlikely to go in there in the first place. It also makes a Conservative victory in 2005 just about within the realms of possibility, which could see someone like Hague become PM.
 
Portillo is currently hosting a TV documentary series about train journeys. I am sure that you have [heard about] Driberg and his interest in railway journeys.

Oooh, matron!

Why don't you just admit you were saying Portillo trawls for rough trade.

Anyway, Portillo was at the MOD, which leads me to believe he could plausibly deny his past history forever if he didn't want to corroborate the story of his past lover. There were no smoking guns to give him away--hence his career as Sec of State. He wasn't Driberg, with files at Scotland Yard et al documenting 'gross indecency'.

is mainstream society ready to accept an openly homosexual Prime Minister and a dishonest one at that?

Wiki tells me Portillo is a 56 year old man who has been married to the same woman since 1982. Where are you getting this 'openly homosexual' guff?

I seriously doubt he maintains a sham marriage in order to work for the Beeb and write articles for the hoity toity press.

What we have here is the question, "Just how successful would a whispering campaign, launched by the likes of Tebbit, against a monogamous, discreet, DADT Portillo be?" And assorted rumblings about 'it's the hyprocrisy we hate, 'tis all'.
 
Watch Portillo on Andrew McNeil's program, or hear him on the radio, and he seems a decent balanced thoughtful man who can see both sides of an issue, discuss in reasonably, and come to a sensible conclusion (even if you don't agree with his conclusion in each cases). He also openly admits to changing his views on various subjects, and so on.

But that's in 2010.

The soft cuddly Portillo.

(Whether that is really him, is open to debate, I personally think it is a sincere transformation).

He didn't appear like that until after he had undergone a long journey and transformation. Including losing his seat, losing the leadership contest, and all else that went on since the abortive plan to stand against Major.

And I'm 110% sure, that if he had become Tory leader, he wouldn't have to take such a long hard look at himself, and thus not undergone the transformation.

Additionally, if he had been Tory leader, and had the other parties, and his own party, sniping at him, it probably would have made him respond by becoming harder and more rigid.

As for the homosexual experiences in his youth? I don't see it's anybody's business but his. The fact that he kept quiet about them for some years, proves nothing about his character, in his circumstances, who wouldn't have kept quiet.

In terms of political effect - if it came out, it would just be another stick for the hard-right in the Tory party to beat him with, and maybe lose him some votes from those who are prejudiced against homosexuals. But that is all.
 
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that leader may find himself out on his ear come July 2001 anyway.

I'm not sure why people are taking this almost as a given. Hague himself, despite his manifest crappiness as leader, would likely have retained his job had the Tories made even any remote headway against Blair's majority. I can't remember what the journalistic consensus on how he had to perform to retain his job, but it was around thirty to forty gains - I suspect had Hague made even about twenty-five to thirty gains, he could have 'winged it'. Portillo could easily have made a Michael Howard-style progression and that could very likely have kept him in post, had he wanted to stay there.

Simple fact is, there just weren't many, in fact hardly any, credible alt-leaders under Hague, or, indeed, up to 2003 or so. So it wouldn't take a lot to keep someone half-decent in place after 2001.

People are also over-emotionalising Portillos transformation into a moderniser. His defeat in 1997 undoubtedly was the trigger, but it was more of a calculation than people realise. Portillo had been swept away by a style of leadership which was socially liberal, emotional, and inclusive; you either wanted to ape that, or reject it. Portillo, and the young turks, chose the former while most of the party chose the latter. But it wasn't just based on a fancy, it was based on the belief that Blair-style politics was the politics of the future. Notably, after Portillo's transformation, almost all of his biggest fans entirely supported him in it, and went on to be big modernisers themselves. So it was a logical progression. Portillo might not change overnight, but it's still pretty likely he'll eventually take things in a different direction.

If you want to be cynical, then consider this: that there would always be the prospect of his student experiences hanging over him, and once they were brought out, it would have been unsustainable for Portillo to continue in the same old socially conservative mould. It was always going to be better that Portillo revealed them himself than had them forced out by the press. And the likelihood of him wanting to end the speculation and insinuation that would be constantly hanging over him as leader, at some point, must surely be rated as high.
 
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