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Michael Denzil Xavier Portillo (born 26 May 1953) is a British journalist, broadcaster, and former Member of Parliament, Deputy Conservative Party leader and Cabinet Minister. Portillo was first elected to the House of Commons in a by-election in 1984; a strong admirer of Margaret Thatcher, and a Eurosceptic, Portillo served as a junior minister under both Thatcher and John Major, before entering the cabinet in 1992. A "darling of the right", he was seen as a likely challenger to Major during the 1995 Conservative leadership election, but stayed loyal. As Defence Secretary, he pressed for a purist Thatcherite course of "clear blue water", separating the policies of the Conservatives from Labour. Portillo unexpectedly lost his very safe Enfield Southgate seat at the 1997 general election. This coined the expression "Portillo moment"; political commentators believed he would have been elected Conservative leader had he retained it. Returning to the Commons after being given the Conservative candidacy in the 1999 by-election in Kensington and Chelsea (an even safer seat), Portillo rejoined the front bench as Shadow Chancellor, although his relationship with Conservative Leader William Hague was strained. Standing for the leadership of the party in 2001, Portillo came a narrow third place behind Iain Duncan Smith and Kenneth Clarke. Portillo retired from the Commons at the 2005 general election, and has since pursued his media interests, presenting a wide range of television and radio programmes. ==Early life and career== Portillo was born in Bushey, Hertfordshire, to an exiled Spanish republican father, Luis Gabriel Portillo (1907–1993), and a Scottish mother, Cora (née Blyth) (1919-2014), whose father, John Blyth, was a prosperous linen mill owner from Kirkcaldy. Portillo was also registered as a Spanish citizen at the age of 4, and, in accordance with Spanish naming customs, his Spanish passport names him as Miguel Portillo Blyth.〔BBC - ''Great Continental Railway Journeys'', Season 2 Episode 6. Portillo mentions this whilst holding up both his British and his Spanish passports to the camera.〕 An early brush with fame came in 1961 when Portillo starred in a television advertisement for Ribena, a blackcurrant cordial drink. He was educated at Stanburn Primary School in Stanmore, Greater London, and Harrow County School for Boys and then won a scholarship to Peterhouse, Cambridge. Portillo graduated in 1975 with a first-class degree in history, and after a brief stint with Ocean Transport and Trading Ltd., a shipping and transport company, he joined the Conservative Research Department in 1976. Following the Conservative victory in 1979 he became a government adviser. He left to work for Kerr-McGee Oil from 1981–1983 and fought his first, unsuccessful, election in the 1983 general election, in the Labour-held seat of Birmingham Perry Barr, losing to Jeff Rooker. Portillo has been married to Carolyn Eadie since 1982. 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Michael Portillo」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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