I Tried to Interview Michael Portillo About Austerity, and It Didn't Go to Plan

Michael Portillo occupies a strange space in the British public consciousness. Known for his colourful politics, and more colourful suits, Portillo today is a media personality – the one who really, really, really likes trains. But it wasn't long ago that Portillo sat at the heart of government. Thatcher said she expected "great things" of the up and coming Tory boy, and during his time in office Portillo served as Shadow Chancellor and Secretary of State for Defence, among a host of other positions.

Having stood down from Parliament in 2005, the 64-year-old has sought to reinvent himself. No longer the poster boy for Thatcherism, he’s now a broadcaster and commentator who likes trains. In an upcoming Channel 5 documentary, Portillo the broadcaster sets out to explore who is to blame for the UK's current housing crisis; in case you missed it, homelessness has increased by 50 percent since the Tories entered Downing Street in 2010, and 1.7 million people pay over a third of their income each month to a private landlord.

After Portillo has travelled the length and breadth of Britain to investigate this question, I'm invited to meet him on the last day of shooting. Our rendezvous point: a bench outside a Greggs in north-east London.

I wait around for half an hour until filming is finally over, his interview with a local councillor dragging on. But before we can get down to talking, Portillo has walked away from me and over towards a railway bridge, to – I can only assume – look at some trains. After a brief trip to Greggs (Portillo doesn't buy anything) he takes a seat next to me in a people carrier. We're heading to his next location, and it's finally time to talk.

"Clearly there is a housing crisis," Portillo says. "There are too few houses for the number of people who are demanding them. The number of people who are able to be owner-occupiers is plummeting, particularly among young people. Meanwhile, the fire at Grenfell focused attention on council estates and their management and conditions, so all of these things seemed to make it the right time to make a film about the history of housing estates and where we stand now."

For the following few minutes, Portillo talks about the history of social housing: of the first housing estate in Britain, built little more than a century ago; of the birth of tower blocks and how house prices have skyrocketed over time.

Of course, I'm sure all of this will be in his Channel 5 documentary, so instead I ask him a little about his own history when it comes to housing – like that time, back in 2010, when he said the government needed to "sweep away the perverse incentives which lead people in social housing to feel it is advantageous not to work".

"We investigate that, and some people do think that the welfare state and the provision of housing lures people into dependency," replies Portillo. "It's important to try and counteract that. In some of the estates there are generations of people who have been without work, so the environment and the example passed down generations is the normality of being without work."

"I don't think it's because they live in social housing," Portillo continues. "I think it's because people whose families have not been in contact with the labour market for long periods and get into big difficulties, those people are picked up by social and council housing, and they can be quite difficult people to live with."

Forgetting the suggestion that unemployed people can be "difficult to live with", Portillo’s assertions seem to not be based in fact. Research by the Joseph Rowntree Foundation has found there's no such thing as a "culture of worklessness" passed down from generation to generation.

With our people carrier now beelining its way towards our destination, I decide to move the conversation swiftly on. The number of people who own their own home has fallen to a 30-year low in Britain, and the average home now costs eight times the average annual salary. Our generation has been truly shafted: home ownership among young people has collapsed. The prospect of a permanent and secure home is now nothing more than a pipe-dream. We're supposed to be grateful if we can afford to rent half a bedsit or a shed.

"I thought we were in a virtuous position when homeownership was rising as a proportion of the population," ponders Portillo, "but we’re in a position now where it's sinking quite fast. One reason why this isn't a good thing is people, instead of paying each month into a mortgage, which essentially is going back to them, the money is being transferred to landlords. Landlords tend to be of an older generation, so money is moving away from younger people to older people."

Last year, when speaking to Building Magazine, Portillo suggested it might not just be young people's welfare that caused him concern when it came to housing. "One of the reasons that Thatcher promoted home ownership is that it promoted responsible citizens with a stake in society," he told the publication. "But another reason was that those people would tend to be Conservative. One of the great foundations of conservatism is threatened by the lack of home ownership."

I ask if the fact that just 23 percent of people under-40 voted Tory in the last election has anything to do with his interest in finding young people homes. "I think I would put it this way round," he responds, pausing briefly. "As Conservative governments watch fairly passively over a decline in home ownership, they should be aware that represents a political threat."

Does he think more young people would vote Tory if they owned their own home? "It's difficult to say. Again and again, people get more conservative as they get older. Whether they'd do it faster if they owned a home? Possibly."

"Anyway," he adds, mildly irritated, "this is quite a long way from my programme."

I take the hint.

One of Thatcher's longest-lasting legacies is the right-to-buy scheme – a policy which gives tenants of councils and some housing associations the legal right to buy, at a substantial discount, the council house they live in. Introduced by Thatcher through the Housing Act 1980, its supporters see the policy as a cornerstone of social mobility, while critics reckon it has done far more harm than good. According to the Channel 5 production company's own factsheet, in 1980 there were 6.5 million council houses. There are now just 2 million.

"I think the benefits of right-to-buy were firstly that it broke up the council estates," Portillo explains. "It got rid of the apartheid between social housing and people who owned their own homes. It had a dramatic effect on people who bought their own homes."

"It's important to remember that none of those assets disappeared," he adds. "People sometimes talk about right-to-buy as if those assets just disappeared, [but] it just moved tenure – going from a council house to a privately-owned house."

I point out that this is like arguing privatisation isn’t really a thing, when you’re very much taking something out of public hands and transferring it to a private individual.

"Yes, I'm not denying that," Portillo replies. "I'm just saying the house didn't disappear."

"One doesn't even know if building more homes will bring the prices down," he continues. "You know, in the short term, house building is at such a low level that it would seem rather far-fetched that prices would come down."

Portillo does reckon, however, that if there's an effort on all fronts to build more housing, whether privately or publicly-owned, it's possible prices will decline.

"Successive governments, whether Labour, Conservative or Conservative-led, have not brought about a renaissance on council housing," he notes. "I suppose because governments take the view that we can’t afford that level of indebtedness."

Conversation soon turns to national politics. Where we’d been shooting, in Enfield, was just a stone's throw from Portillo’s old constituency of Enfield Southgate, which he lost in a shock defeat in 1997.

"What we've been looking at in Enfield is the council bringing down tower blocks that aren't suitable for the modern age, and they can’t refurbish," he says. "[The council is] making quite a lot of money out of the deal because the land is sold off to the private sector, the money it gets is reinvested into housing, and on the site itself it gets something like 40 percent social housing; about half is council and half is hosting affordable housing. All of that produces money that can be spent on housing, but still you have the bare facts that they're taking down about 960 council properties and supplying, well, a very much smaller number than that on the site."

Enfield has the highest eviction rate in the capital by a wide margin, with 34 evictions per every 1,000 renting households (compared to 28 per 1,000 in the second highest borough, Brent). Some 29 percent of workers do not earn a living wage. I can't help but wonder if austerity has got anything to do with the housing crisis in Portillo’s mind.

"I really don't know what you mean by austerity politics," Portillo says. "Great Britain has lived beyond its means in every single year. Britain still has today the highest deficit in the European Union, although fortunately now the deficit has been somewhat reduced."

I ask if he sees a connection between the housing crisis, austerity, and Enfield’s residents ditching the Tories. He pauses for a while

"I think, overall, I don’t."

"That’s way beyond my brief," he continues. "I'm nothing to do with the Conservative Party, I'm not a member of the Conservative Party. I stopped being a member shortly after I stopped being a member of Parliament and I took up a career as a broadcaster."

I tell Portillo I think of him both as a politician and as a broadcaster.

"Yes, I think that has been your problem during this interview," he replies, passing me my dictaphone back. "We’re just wandering on and on – I didn't agree to answer questions on any old subject. You've had a go."

For the next 25 minutes we continue driving. Portillo sits next to me in complete silence, his head facing down as he scrolls through his phone. I suppose that's a lesson for all of us: ex-Tory Minister Michael Portillo isn't a political figure or someone who has something to do with the Conservative Party, he's just a broadcaster making a film about houses who really, really likes trains.

Michael Portillo: Our Housing Crisis – Who's to Blame? airs on Channel 5 at 10PM on Thursday the 26th of April.

@mikesegalov