What if Michael Portillo did not lose his seat of Enfield Southgate in the 1997 UK election? he was considered a frontrunner for the party leadership, so if he kept his seat would Portillo become leader of the Tories? If so, how would he do? The Tories had just received the worst defeat in their history, but it's possible they make gains in the next election and then win back power in the election after that(or at least come very close), that's what they'd done after 1945. However insteaad after two more elections the party still hadn't gotten to 200 seats and so Tony Blair was never effectively challenged outside his party. Could Portillo have done better? I think he could. If he was leader Portillo could have been more willing get to modernise the party than Hague, and he may have begun to detoxify the Tory image. The result is the Tories gain seats in 2001, say getting around 190 and reducing Labour's majority. Portillo may stay on if he gets a good-enough result, but there are different standards of good-enough and what the Tories could plausibly get in 2001. If he says on I think he could reduce Blair to a hung Parliament in 2005 and maybe get the Tories back into government a few years earlier. How do you think a Portillo 1997 leadership would go? What would be the effects? Could the Conservatives get back into power earlier? How would British politics be altered? What if?