A few years ago while working for the Coalition against the Criminal Justice Bill I organised a demonstration at Alexandra Palace where Michael Portillo was holding a party in celebration of his ten years as an MP. Besides being a Tory he had nothing much to do with the Criminal Justice Bill so the reason for the demonstration was mainly just to have a vindictive pop at him. We over egged the expected numbers from a few hundred to a few thousand to both the media and police which resulted in security cordons being set up, police leave being cancelled and the guests having a miserable time getting in. I thought it was a good nights work.

In 97 I voted in Palmers Green for Stephen Twigg against Portillo and danced with delight for days remembering the look on his face when he was beaten.

More recently Michael Portillo has been appearing on a late night political chat show called "This Week". The sexual chemistry between him and Diane Abbott has to be seen to be believed and I like Dianne have found myself warming to him.

It's now come to a head - Last night he appeared on another TV show "When Michael Portillo became a single mum"

I don't hate him anymore.

Do I need therapy and if so where can I get it?

Dickie - Portaloo is vile Tory scum. Get treatment.

First: I know NOTHING about Portillo's political actions, absolutely nothing. Never seen him in debate shows, so really blank there
The fact that he is a tory bastard I heard, from hearsay.
But the things I saw of him on TV were quite good. He did a piece on Spain, in which he talked about the civil war with his family that was bitterly divided during that time, and I thought that was well done.
I'm sorry I missed him playing single mum.
So far I thought of him a boring, very gay, tory bastard, but a nice one

Dickie - despite being, as Mark so eloquently put it, "vile Tory scum", I have always found Michael Portillo the person, politics aside, quite likeable.

Good on him, I say, for taking part in the experiment. I think it should be compulsory for any politician responsible for making policy on things which so closely affect people's lives. He openly admitted that he didn't really know what life was like for low income families. I'm sure that's the case for the majority of his colleagues (note just Tory either).

Of course I don't expect him to suddenly turn into a militant campaigner for welfare reform, but if its changed his perception even a little, then it can only be a good thing.

I shall now be glued to "This Week" in anticipation of the sexual chemistry between him and Diane Abbott!

Best line in the show.

Michael P is in a "cheap" butchers in Liverpool.

Passr by - You're a politician aren't you?

M.P. - Yes I am.

Passer by - What are you doin' here then?

M.P. - Errr. Buying a chicken.

bugger.

i was tempted to watch it but suspected i could be fall into the trap of getting to like the bloke. I haven't seen him with diane abbot but the spanish civil war programme was very good.

dicke. I think we need to watch less telly!

but if the single mum thing gets a repeat on cable give me a shout!

Top moments for me:

1. Michael in his ASDA uniform and baseball cap figuring out all by himself that putting the security tags through the seams of the George garments will prevent them from making holes

2. Michael, while holding a karaoke party for 7 12 year old schoolfriends of one of 'his' kids, dancing by himself in the kitchen to Aqua's 'Dr Jones' before joining in on a rendition of 'American Pie.'

It was must see TV Sonj!

Oh Yeah the ASDA hat "Why am I the only one wearing one?" DERRR!

Yep BtP I have watched far too much television this month. I've even caught up with Eastenders. Role on next Tuesday…I'll have money in the bank and "wife swap" will be on again.

I won't even switch the box on tonight and I swear it is nothing at all to do with Mrs D's homecoming.

Mr P stands down as MP

Heard him on the today programme the other day talking about the destitution and misery he'd encountered whilst in Easterhouse and other deprived areas in Scotland.
I think he's had a lurch to the left ideologically speaking and feels like a fish out of water surrounded by so many screaming fascists!

See I was right - He isn't vile Tory scum anymore.

so nobody thinks it is a case of keep head down while tory party implodes, become so popular with all sections of voting public and get begged back?

meanwhile over at Millbank Ton and Gordy rip their party apart, both are exposed as two faced schemers more interested in their egos than the country and ultimately both unelectable.

Enter stage right, Michael, who everyone knows from mainstream media programmes- Celebrity Fame Academy doing Between the Wars (tee-hee) -no make that New England. Universally loved by male and female alike, left and right- just the thing the country needs.

Now that is a conspiracy theory.

Funny you should write that....because it's exactly what I've been thinking since this thread started.


WATCH OUT AND NEVER TRUST THAT BASTARD !

So a couple of you don't think he's vile anymore?

He's an anagram of that he's now EVIL.

Trust the tories?,please never again.

Dickie, only just read this thread, really interesting subject and enjoyed the posts.

I also got a lot from watching the Spanish doc he did. Frightening!

It does seem to be pointing us back to basics, I will repeat tonight before I go to bed, "Don't mix people with politics, don't mix people with politics, don't mix politics with people. " mantra mantra mantra.

Mind you if someone decides that Hitler had some good points ...

He made the trains run on time and built motorways.

One out of two ain't bad.

Bastard couldn't produce the peoples car though!

That was because he was an egotistical little wanker who had no thought but how to remain in power and dominate the world.

Hitler, Blair, Bush...eeyugh!

Nasty.

"Nasty" has a sexual connotation in the State ...

What was this thread about? Oh Him! Just another Tory wondering how it all went wrong ...

It was about Portillo!!
And I have an even worse confession than the original posting:
I find him rather sexy!!!

Sexy? I can see that, I think, ...

Is it the eyes? Or those thick sensous lips?

He certainly stands out in a crowd when he's with his fellow faceless comrades ...

Still a middle class, public schoolboy Tory shite though ...

It’s his “earthliness”: physical, bodily, material, tangible, warm, dangerous

Ohhh..

More with the young'uns.

Interesting thread (really!). Wish I had a clue who you were talking about.

A few choice pics of the former tory minister for Roo:

And don't forget his own modest presentation:
www.michaelportillo.co.uk

As if any further proof were needed...

Michael and our own Billy B where very chummy on the box last night.

They were like a pair of nodding dogs.

what did i miss ???????

Billy B was the video diarist and studio guest on "This Week" with Michael, Dianne and Andrew Neil.

If i'd been around I would have put it in Media Apps.

My 2 favourites!!!
With Mr. Fishtin or whatshisname , he good (?) people of Kensington and Chelsea must feel like the Turks when Atatürk died and was succeeded by Ýnönü: “Turkey has lost her lover and gained a husband”.

I decided that about Portillo back in 1997. I contrasted that arrogant toad David Mellor losing his seat and shouting and Portillos gracefull, honest and very humble conceding of deafeat and subsequent departure. I even naively put a fiver on him to win the Tory leadership contest. I think the FIXED viewpoint of many socialists that all Tories are scum, especially in the wake of these current low calibre labour politicians is laughable. What New labour stand for and are doing is to my mind worse than what the Tory party I couldn't wait to oust stood for. I will not be blinkered by left/right wing compartments.

What we need now are professional politicians who can run the country properly. I personally think New Labour are the worst government we've ever had. The fact of whether they are labour or tory is irrelevant to me. As politicians, they and their policies are a joke. What ever happened to child curfews, drunk and disorderly people being taken to cash machines by the police and all the other stupid unworkable communist type policies. UK-2004 is a joke, labour have had 7 years and they have failed. I'd vote for Portillo if he was in my constituency (and wasn't leaving politics anyway), purely because I think he is a high calibre politician and an intelligent politician.

BTW did anyone see Blunkett coming last on celebrity mastermind?

Joannie C - You are not alone!

What - you had a pervy dream about him too, Dickie?!

nothing wrong with mikey portilista

if there is one party imploding its labour, hopefully we will be rid of the lying evil bastards soon

And back to those paragons of truth, transparency and integrity, the Tories...?

So am I getting this right Dickie fanceies Micheal Tortila?

That would depend on your definition of pervy.

It certainly put the wind up Mrs Me though...I think her exact words were "You're not coming anywhere near me with a rolled up copy of the DailyTelegraph."

Abbott and Portillo do sit very close to each other, they probably discuss Public schools as her kids go to one and he obviously did.

That said he has shifted to the left and would like his party to occupy the centre ground thats currently Labours.

Oh and Labours not worse than the Tories, would the Tories have givern us, the Minimum wage,sure start, new deal, fairness at work Act, a ban on fox hunting, civil partnerships etc etc etc Oh and we had two recessions under the tories and none under Labour with low unemployment and low interest rates etc etc

There have been some dissapontments with labour sure and there's still plenty to do, but never forget what the Tory mentality did to the mines and the docks.

Abbott and Portillo are bessie mates in real life, which probably tells you all you need to know. It's the reason they were chosen for that programme.

Abbott and Portillo went to the same school.

I'm a big fan of Portillo. I feel like he's changed so much over the last 5 years. He's a different person. Some of his columns in the Times were so right on over the last year or so, I was really shocked. He's not an ideologue like Boris Johnson (Johnson's cute and bumbly, but he's the dangerous one) or some of the other Tory leaders.

He's rather fascinating. And he and Diane have gone from nearly openly groping each other on the sofa to relaxed friendship. I wonder what happened?

I read somewhere that they were in school plays together…

Source - www.hignfy.net/politicians1.htm

"Dianne Abbott went to school with Clive Anderson and Michael Portillo,"

"Dianne Abbott played the wife of Portillo's McDuff."

"Portillo was trying to pull Abbott during their schooldays because Portillo admitted later he only joined the drama group to get off with a girl…"

Yeah, that's what he says now...

Are you mad?

That's the kind of thinking that will get the tories in for 18 years, and I couldn't live through that again.

Whatever you think of this government. They have got rid of fox hunting (sort of) and got rid of hereditary peerage (sort of), no other government has done that in 500 years. Get rid of the wasters in Buckingham palace and for me that's a perfect three.

Whilst I agree with your sentiment about the Tories I don't think Gordon Brown has been much more than a benign chancellor - it's all been smoke and mirrors - low employment and low interest rates are not really the result of new labour more just a booming economy and globalisation.

And as for PFI and PPP that is just storing up huge problems for the future - we might have lots of new hospitals and schools - but a) they are mostly badly and inappropriately designed and built, considerably overbudget (and therefore actually would have been cheaper to build publicly), and c) will prove far more expensive in the long run as the shitty corporations that run them milk every last drop of the cash cows Brown and his lackeys have created...

i cannot believe some people

fancy supporting a party which has criminalised the hard working folk by pointless mass fines from speed cameras, failed to improve road casulaties, imposed "driver training" as a punishment which results in drivers MORE LIKELY TO HAVE AN ACCIDENT THAN THOSE THAT DO NOT DO THE TRAINING

allowed fuel prices to go through the roof mainly through crp tax policies

imposed thousands of stealth taxes, undermining ordinary folks savings and pensions

ruined the nhs by throwing money at it, but failing to reform it in any meaningful way

and generally fucked up the country in countles ways

the uk is now suffering from reverse natural selection as the only people breeding are the very families least able to bring up decent kids

good grief charlie brown.

nonsense



road casualties have been falling since seat belt wearing was made compulsory.

as for speed cameras they were a) introduced by the Tories and b) if hard working folk OBEYED the law and didn't speed they wouldn't find themselves with speeding fines.



crap in 1996 under the tories petrol tax was 77% - now it is 66.7%.





Thousands??? If you can name 1001 new stealth taxes I may just believe you - you are talking total tosh! In fact the burden of taxation is LOWER than the average under the Tories between 1979-1997!



And as you can see below - we have a LOW tax burden compared to most other industrialised countries





The NHS was fucked to start with - I'm not about to defend the governments record on the NHS but the problems are historical and stem from the Tories changing the very nature of the NHS by trying to introduce market reforms - New Labour's problems stem from not undoing that!



Want to compare them to Thatcher?



I have no idea what you are on about here - please explain.

fecking what?


edited to say went back to read it properly.
tin man you will be saying you support geneticism and enforced contraceptive medical procedures next.

Thats Judy and her kids.......

re "you will be saying you support geneticism and enforced contraceptive medical procedures next."

no i will not, but i do find it sad that for the poor kids on the larger and worst council estates they are actively incentivised to have kids by various govt policies and benefits, and for the middle classes forced into the mobile workforce and doing long hours the tax and other regimes imposed by the govt actively discourage bringing kids into the world

seems a shame thats all

barmyrob you make me laugh so much i feel i owe you some kind of payment as a comic

nice that you admit the nhs is fucked though, be nice if the lying evil labour idiots did the same, instead of the crap trotted out by ms hewitt and friends

on the motoring stuff suggest u look at abd.org.uk for a while, dont think it merits my repeating it at length, on the tax issue suggest you read the ft or telegraph

cheers