Michael Portillo Biography
Michael Portillo is a British journalist, broadcaster, and former politician, best known for his work in television and his political career as a Conservative Member of Parliament (MP) in the United Kingdom.
Political Career
– Born: May 26, 1953, in Bushey, Hertfordshire, England.
– Education: Portillo attended Harrow County Grammar School and later studied History at Peterhouse, Cambridge.
– Career:
– Portillo began his career in politics as a Conservative Party researcher and worked his way up, serving as a special adviser to key figures such as Margaret Thatcher.
– He was first elected as an MP in 1984 for Enfield Southgate but lost the seat in 1997. His defeat, dubbed the “Portillo moment,” became one of the most memorable events of the general election.
– Portillo returned to Parliament in 1999, representing Kensington and Chelsea, before stepping away from politics in 2005.
During his political career, Portillo held several key positions, including Chief Secretary to the Treasury, Secretary of State for Employment, and Secretary of State for Defence.
Broadcasting Career
After retiring from politics, Michael Portillo transitioned to a successful career in broadcasting. He is particularly well-known for his television series on rail travel, where he explores the history, culture, and scenery of various regions using historical railway guides. His popular shows include:
– Great British Railway Journeys
– Great Continental Railway Journeys
– Great American Railroad Journeys
– Great Asian Railway Journeys
Other Roles
Portillo is also a columnist, writer, and commentator on political and social issues. He frequently appears on programs such as *This Week*, where he shares his insights on current affairs.
Portillo is admired for his ability to reinvent himself from a prominent political figure to a widely recognized and respected television personality.
Michael Portillo Education
Portillo attended Stanburn Primary School in Stanmore, Greater London, and Harrow County School for Boys. He won a scholarship to attend Peterhouse College, Cambridge where he gained his first-class degree in History.
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Michael Portillo Age and Birthday
How old is Michael? Portillo is 71 years old as of 2024. Portillo was born Michael Denzil Xavier Portillo on 26 May 1953, in Bushey, Hertfordshire, England. The former conservative celebrates his birthday on May 5th of every year.
Michael Portillo Nationality and Ethnicity
Michael holds British nationality and citizenship by birth. He was born and raised in Bushey, Hertfordshire, England. He is of mixed ethnicity of Spanish-Scottish ethnicity/heritage/ancestry.
Michael Portillo Parents
Portillo is the son of (father) Luis Gabriel Portillo and (mother) Cora Waldegrave Blyth. His father Luis Gabriel was an exiled Spanish republican born in 1907 and died in 1993 while her mother was Scottish. His father was a Catholic. His father became head of the London Diplomatic Office of the Government in Exile in 1972. Portillo’s maternal grandfather, John Blyth, was a prosperous linen mill owner from Kirkcaldy.
Michael Portillo Mother
Portillo’s mother is known as Cora Waldegrave Blyth and she is Scottish. His mother was born in 1919 and died in 2014.
Michael Portillo Wife | Gay
Is Michael Portillo gay? Portillo is not gay but he is currently married to his wife Carolyn Claire Eadie. The couple got married officially through a wedding ceremony on February 12, 1982. The couple met at the college and dated each other since the sixth form.
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Michael Portillo Clothes
Through the span of his monstrously well-known Great Continental Railway Journeys series, host Portillo is known globally for his sense of design and wild color schemes – which is a piece of the show’s allure. This is a man unafraid to consolidate a lilac coat and lime-green shirt while embellishing with his trusty Bradshaw’s Guide.
Michael Portillo Net Worth
Portillo as an accomplished British broadcaster, journalist, and former conservative has an estimated net worth of €8.2 million ($9 million)
Michael Portillo Height and Weight
How tall is Portillo? Portillo stands at an approximated height of 1.8 m (5’9″) and the exact body weight he maintains is not yet available.
Michael Portillo Brexit
Portillo has supported Brexit, however likewise has communicated the feeling that in the British framework, where Parliament is sovereign, the 2016 Brexit choice “totally doesn’t fit with our framework” and that “parliament has the privilege to decipher” the outcome. In a 2016 TV conversation, he said that “as a result of the calamitous botch submitted by David Cameron, [Nigel] Farage merits a spot ever” in light of the fact that “he scared the Prime Minister into holding a submission that he at that point lost.” He additionally denounced Theresa May’s 2018 “Chequers Plan” for leave dealings as “the most awful selling out, and on the off chance that I had been an individual from the Cabinet, I would have been one of the ones who might have stopped throughout the end of the week.” On another event Portillo shouted (as a savant on This Week) that “shy of walking Mrs. May into a railroad carriage in the Compiègne woods, they couldn’t have created an additionally mortifying give up.
Michael Portillo Train Journeys
Portillo is the writer and presenter of the BBC documentary series “Great British Railway Journeys” The program was first communicated in 2010 on BBC Two and has returned every year for a sum of 11 series.
The series highlights Portillo going around the railroad systems of Great Britain, Ireland and the Isle of Man, alluding to Bradshaw’s Guide and looking at how the different goals have changed since; at first, he utilized an 1840s duplicate, yet in later series, he utilized different versions.
Portillo has likewise given 7 different projects a comparable organization: Great Continental Railway Journeys (6 series; 2012–2018), Great American Railroad Journeys (4 series; 2016–2020), Great Indian Railway Journeys (2018), Great Alaskan Railroad Journeys and Great Canadian Railway Journeys (communicate continuously in January 2019), Great Australian Railway Journeys (2019) and Great Asian Railway Journeys (2020).
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Michael Portillo BBC
Portillo has made various TV programs for BBC2 including Art that Shook the world: Richard Wagner’s Ring, Portillo in Euroland, Elizabeth I in the arrangement Great Britons, When Michael Portillo Turned into a Solitary Mum, Portillo Goes Wild in Spain and The Science of Killing. There followed narratives on the unburied bodies from the Spanish Civil War and on Guantanamo Bay.
In 2010 BBC Radio 4 conveyed his 3-section series “Majority Rule Government on Trial”. For BBC4 he has made a few series of Dinner with Portillo, a conversation program, and in 2008 The Lady’s not for Spurning (about Margaret Thatcher’s heritage). Since 2006 he has been on The Moral Maze group on BBC Radio 4.
In 2003, Portillo started the week-after-week political conversation program This Week on BBC1 with individual moderators Andrew Neil and Diane Abbott MP. He completed 100 projects for BBC2 in the Great British Railway Journeys and Great Continental Railway Journeys. He was a week-by-week reporter on The Sunday Times for a long time and was The New Statesman’s theater pundit from 2004-2006.
In 2008, he led the adjudicators of the Man Booker prize, while in 2011 he led the Art Fund Prize, and in 2012 he led the board of trustees prescribing awards for a blessing to expressions and legacy organizations under the administration’s Catalyst program.
Michael was an individual from the International Commission on Missing Persons in Yugoslavia from 1998 to 2012. He sat on the Board of BAE Systems plc from 2002 to 2006 and of Kerr McGee Corporation from 2006. He is the originator of DebRA, Epidermolysis Bullosa (EB), the national cause chipping away at the sake of individuals with hereditary skin rankling jumble. He was the British Chairman for the 2004-2008 British-Spanish Tertulias.
Michael Portillo Facts
- Full Name: Michael Denzil Xavier Portillo
- Date of Birth: 26 May 1953
- Age: 70 years old as of 2023
- Place of Birth: Bushey, United Kingdom
- Spouse | Wife: Carolyn Claire Eadie
- Height: 1.8 m (5’9″)
- Education: Stanburn Primary School, Harrow County School and Peterhouse College, Cambridge
- Net Worth: €8.2 million ($9 million)
Michael Portillo Books
- Great American Railroad Journeys (2017)
- Democratic Values and the Currency: A Lecture Given to the Institute of Economic Affairs at Church House,
- Westminster, on Wednesday 14 January 1998 (1998)
- The Blue Horizon (1993)
- A Vision for the 1990s (1992)
- The Ghost of Toryism Past: The Spirit of Conservatism Future (1997)
- Beyond New Labour: The 1998 Swinton Lecture (1999)
- Portillo?’s Hidden History of Britain (2018)
- The Green Line: The Division of Cyprus: a Photographic Record (1998)
- The Economics of John Smith (1992)
