Christianity: A History

Michael Portillo was born in North London in 1953. His father, Luis, came to Britain as a refugee at the end of the Spanish Civil War, and his mother, Cora, was brought up in Fife, in Scotland.

Cambridge to the Commons
After gaining a first class degree in History at Peterhouse, Cambridge, he worked for a shipping company for a year. In 1976 he joined the Conservative Research Department, and was responsible for briefing Margaret Thatcher before her press conferences during the 1979 general election; for the next two years was special adviser to the Secretary of State for Energy.

Michael Portillo worked for Kerr McGee Oil (UK) Ltd from 1981 - 1983, during which time he married Carolyn. He contested the Birmingham Perry Bar seat at the 1983 election, and returned to politics as a special adviser to the Chancellor of the Exchequer. In December 1984, he won the Enfield Southgate by-election, called as a result of the murder of Sir Anthony Berry MP in the Brighton bombing, and represented this constituency for 13 years.

He joined the Government in 1986 and remained a member until 1997. He was a whip, Parliamentary Under Secretary for Social Security, Minister of State for Transport, and Minister of State for Local Government and Inner Cities. As a Cabinet Minister, he was Chief Secretary to the Treasury, Secretary of State for Employment, and Secretary of State for Defence. He was admitted to the Privy Council in 1992.

Into the media
After his electoral defeat in 1997, Michael Portillo returned to Kerr McGee as an adviser and also turned to journalism. He wrote about walking in the footsteps of pilgrims on the Santiago Way and about working as a hospital porter, and had a weekly column in The Scotsman. He presented a three-part series for Channel 4 about politics called Portillo’s Progress, a programme in BBC2’s Great Railway Journeys series, which was partly a biography of his late father, and radio programmes on Wagner and the Spanish Civil War.

Michael Portillo was re-elected to Parliament in a by-election in Kensington & Chelsea in November 1999 and was Shadow Chancellor of the Exchequer between February 2000 and September 2001. Following the Conservatives’ election defeat in 2001, Michael unsuccessfully contested the leadership of the party and, in 2005, left the House of Commons.

Dynamic ideas
He has made television programmes for BBC2 including Art that shook the world: Richard Wagner’s Ring, Portillo in Euroland, Elizabeth I in the series Great Britons, When Michael Portillo Became a Single Mum, Portillo Goes Wild in Spain (a natural history programme) and The Science of Killing (for Horizon).

He has also made several series of BBC4’s discussion programme, Dinner with Portillo and, in 2008, The Lady’s not for Spurning, about Margaret Thatcher’s legacy. In 2003 he began the weekly BBC1 political discussion programme, This Week, with fellow presenters Andrew Neil and Diane Abbott MP, and in 2006 joined The Moral Maze team on BBC Radio 4.
Since 2004 Michael has been a frequent columnist on The Sunday Times; he was theatre critic of the New Statesman between 2004 and 2006 and was chair of the judges’ panel for the 2008 Man Booker literature prize.