Just as for football fans there are iconic moments such as Koeman’s goal at Wembley, or Iniesta’s against Chelsea at Stamford Bridge, or Maradona’s hand of God against England, something similar happens in politics. One etched in the collective memory of the British occurred after three in the morning on May 2, 1997, when an unknown young man called Stephen Twigg stole the seat of Michael Portillo, Tory heavyweight, Thatcher’s dolphin and candidate for prime minister. . A historic humiliation.
Conservatives fear that in the next elections (possibly in the fall, but still undated) what happened to Portillo will happen to numerous members of the Cabinet and political figures of the last fourteen years who will fall like flies before a Labor avalanche. If the polls forecast came true, even Prime Minister Rishi Sunak’s seat in North Yorkshire would be in danger. It would be a real nightmare.
With still a few months to go before the polls, 66 conservative deputies have already announced that they will not stand for re-election, and it is expected that in the end there will be a hundred or more, almost a third of the current parliamentary group (among them the former Prime Minister Theresa May). By announcing it in advance, they can start pulling strings and take the lead in seeking well-paying jobs in the private sector before defeat is consumed and a crowd of party colleagues become unemployed like them.
In honor of Michael Portillo, it must be admitted that he humbly accepted his defeat, took the blow with sportsmanship and congratulated his rival in front of the television cameras. His political career was struck down as if by lightning, and from a potential heir to the throne of the right-wing of the United Kingdom he went on to make travel documentaries to Spain for the BBC, taking advantage of the fact that his father was from Ávila (a professor and republican politician, friend of Unamuno, exiled in the United Kingdom as a result of the war, who married the rich heiress of a Scottish billionaire).
In 1993 in Canada, the right went from having power to keeping two seats and only 16% of the votes
Rishi Sunak, if he loses, will surely find a job in the world of investment banking, or he will settle in Santa Monica (California), where he has a house, and in any case he does not lack money (he is one of the richest men in the world). country), but for his potential successors (Kemi Badenoch, Penny Mordaunt, Suella Braverman, Priti Patel, James Cleverly, Grant Shapps…) Portillo’s image does not let them sleep. To be the leader of a party you have to have a seat, and without it you are nobody.
Most of them represent constituencies that under normal circumstances would be considered safe, long-standing Tory strongholds in rural areas, with a considerable number of retirees, vicars, ex-colonels, longing for the empire and other members of the conservative tribe. But, if Labor does not collapse, realizes its twenty-point lead in the polls and Reform UK (Nigel Farage’s far-right party) also bites, seemingly impregnable towers are in danger of falling, and no one will be within reach. except.
Labour, a self-conscious party that always feels in a kind of provisional freedom, is afraid that victory may still slip through its fingers, and the conservatives are afraid not of losing, but of suffering an extermination like the of their Canadian colleagues in 1993, when Kim Campbell succeeded Brian Mulroney, and from governing the country they went on to keep 16% of the votes and only two seats.
Fewer and fewer Tories are banking on a miracle (that voters’ attitudes will change due to an improving economy, lower interest rates, or sending asylum seekers to Rwanda), and more are jumping the gun. ship, write the epitaph or prepare the opposition. The great battle ahead will determine whether the Conservative Party surrenders to Trumpism and becomes a group of far-right insurgents and populists, skeptical of climate change, who incorporate the xenophobic ideology of Farage and Reform UK, with no room for moderates , or if he recovers pragmatism and his role as a defender of traditions, reformist, but not reactionary, gradualist and interpreter of the nation’s mood, defender of the establishment, authority and the status quo, which has historically led him to win two out of every three elections. The fight between both groups for the soul of the party is going to be to the death.
If the polls are right, even Prime Minister Rishi Sunak is in danger of losing his seat
Everything indicates that on election night, whenever it may be, there will be an almost total solar eclipse like the one seen the other day. “Portillo Moments” there will be more than one.
2024-04-13 04:54:07
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