Platform For Portillo

From party line, through branch lines, to punchlines, politician turned railway raconteur Michael Portillo is arriving at platforms in Norwich and King’s Lynn.

- Rowan Mantell

HE HAS moved on from his Portillo Moment, putting thousands of miles of railway travel between himself and that lost Parliamentary seat, but Michael Portillo wants it to be known that he is not ready to hand over his title to any loser-come-lately usurper, even one with Gangnam style.

“The Portillo Moment is still the classic of the genre and I’m keen to hang on to it, and I’ve told Ed Balls that!” said the former Conservative politician, turned broadcaster and raconteur.

It’s a funny line; one of many from the man who honed his wit in the raucous and combative atmosphere of the House of Commons.

“It’s always been necessary in making speeches to have a few jokes up your sleeve. It’s part and parcel of making a speech in Britain,” said Michael. And so he has hoarded anecdotes, witticisms and one-liners and now not only tours the country by rail, making television programmes about the Victorian past of the places he is visiting, but also tours its arts centres and theatres, entertaining audiences with autobiographical stories.

It’s not all jokes. “There are moments of contemplation, there are moments of poignancy, I hope it’s a little bit of a rollercoaster,” says Michael.

This month he will be in Norwich and King’s Lynn with Life: A Game of Two Halves.

And the second part of each talk is a question and answer session. Inspired by the image of Portillo plunging down the sheer drop of a rollercoaster, I wonder whether this is a dangerous way to make a living. He finds this amusing. “If you are a politician you spend your life answering questions,” he says. “They can ask whatever they want, and on the whole they ask about the making of the programmes or about politics.”