JO SWINSON became the latest in a long line of high-profile MPs to face the humiliation of losing her seat on election night in what will go down in history as another “Portillo moment”.
Ms Swinson started her campaign saying she could become the next Prime Minister. Not only were her hopes catastrophically and brutally crushed by Boris Johnson’s huge Tory majority, she is now no longer an MP. However, the now former leader of the Liberal Democrats is not the first, and will not be the last, to see her dream of high office swept away by defeat at constituency level.
The 39-year-old suffered what is commonly referred to as a “Portillo moment” – a term that came to prominence on May 2, 1997, at 3.10am, when Cabinet minister Michael Portillo, once tipped as a future Conservative Party leader, lost his Enfield Southgate seat to Labour.
The result sent shockwaves around the nation, as it represented a whopping 17.4 percent swing to Labour and, as Prime Minister John Major was widely expected to lose the general election to make way for Labour’s Tony Blair, Mr Portillo was considered a frontrunner to replace him as Conservative Party leader in opposition.
Reflecting on it recently, Mr Portillo said: “It is a very public humiliation and I don’t want to wish it on anybody.
“But if it does happen to somebody they might reflect on the fact that in my own case, in my own humble view, it was the making of me.
“I went off and made another career and I had a tremendous amount of fun doing that.”
Whether Ms Swinson can do the same remains to be seen.
More ominously for the pro-EU politician, Mr Portillo also reflected on his name being “synonymous with eating a bucketload of s*** in public”.
Aside from Mr Portillo, perhaps the most famous case of a frontbencher losing in their own constituency came in the shape of Labour’s Ed Balls in 2015.
The former Shadow Chancellor was a huge scalp for the Tories, as Andrea Jenkyns won the seat by a margin of 0.9 percent.
Ms Swinson now joins Mr Balls and Mr Portillo among the most high-profile scalps in recent election history.
Other notable oustings this year were Tory Zac Goldsmith, who lost his Richmond seat and Labour’s Dennis Skinner, the Beast of Bolsover, who represented his Derbyshire seat for 49 years.
However, Dominic Raab and Iain Duncan Smith managed to hold on in what will be remembered as a hugely successful night for Boris Johnson and the Conservative Party.
Betfair Exchange have Ed Davey as the frontrunner to replace Ms Swinson with 8/13 odds while Layla Moran has odds of 8/11.
Spokesman Sam Rosbottom said: “One of the big casualties of the evening was Jo Swinson, the Lib Dem leader, who lost her seat in East Dunbartonshire.
“The early favourite to take over from her as leader is Ed Davey at odds of 8/13, while Layla Moran is closely behind him in the betting at 8/11.”
https://www.express.co.uk/news/uk/1216775/jo-swinson-lib-dem-general-election-2019-portillo-moment-boris-johnson-spt
