| Michael Portillo - Your local MP - E: kensington@myvillage.co.uk | |
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| Biography | |
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The Rt Hon Michael Portillo MP Michael
Portillo was born in North London in 1953. Michael attended Harrow County Grammar School for Boys, and Peterhouse, Cambridge, where he gained a first class honours degree in History. He left Cambridge in 1975 and worked for a shipping company for a year before moving, in 1976, to the Research Department at Conservative Central Office. During the 1979 General Election he was responsible for briefing Margaret Thatcher before her press conferences. After this election he spent two years as Special Adviser to the Secretary of State for Energy, followed, after a break, by two years with Kerr McGee Oil UK. In 1982 Michael and Carolyn married. They had first met when they were at school. Carolyn had become a chartered accountant, and for the last fifteen years has been a 'head-hunter' with Spencer Stuart Associates. In 1983 Michael returned to politics as Special Adviser to the Chancellor of the Exchequer, Nigel Lawson, and in December 1984 was elected as the Member of Parliament for Enfield Southgate in a by-election caused by the death of Sir Anthony Berry MP in the Brighton bombing. He joined the Government as a Whip in 1986, was Parliamentary under-secretary in the Department of Health and Social Security from 1987-88, Minister of State for Transport from 1988-90 and Minister of State for Local Government from 1990-92. In 1992 he was appointed to the Cabinet as Chief Secretary to the Treasury and was admitted to the Privy Council. In 1994 he became Secretary of State for Employment and in 1995, Secretary of State for Defence, a post he held until the 1997 General Election. Having represented Enfield Southgate for thirteen years Michael was defeated at the 1997 General Election and returned to Kerr McGee as an adviser. His other interests included writing, speaking engagements and media work. He wrote about walking as a pilgrim on the Santiago Way, and working as a hospital porter. He had a weekly column in The Scotsman. He recorded a three part series for Channel 4 about politics entitled Portillo's Progress, a programme for BBC2's Great Railway Journeys series, which was partly a biography of his father, and radio programmes on Wagner and the Spanish Civil War. In November 1999 Michael was elected as Member of Parliament for Kensington & Chelsea in a by-election caused by the death of the Rt. Hon. Alan Clark. In February 2000 he joined the Opposition Front Bench Team as Shadow Chancellor. Michael is a member of the International Commission on Missing Persons in the former Yugoslavia (which organises the identification of massacre victims) under the chairmanship of Bob Dole, and he also serves on the advisory council of the Institute for International Studies at Stanford, California. The Portillos love to travel in search of open spaces, history, architecture and opera. |
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