THE preppy white shirt, well-cut suit, groomed Adonis hair and pearly white smile still say politician; the Jon Snow testcard tie says broadcaster, and the two Portillos come together in this evening of reflection, prediction and floor questions.

Eschewing the leather chair and without notes, Portillo stands in the spotlight, just as he did on the fateful night of his humbling election defeat in 1997, the starting point for Saturday's show and of his journey to the "An Evening With" circuit.

Several times, with practised humour, the former Tory minister makes light of that career nadir, without delving deeper into his feelings at that time.

Indeed, aside from his protracted ruminations on the Spanish Civil War, the first half skims the surface with a joke here and a story or two there at his own expense in the jungles of both Westminster and television. Up to this point, the Portillo bite is missing, and the charm offensive has dominated.

However, the audience question time teases the outspoken Portillo from his smooth shell to talk of Richard Wagner's anti-Semitism; his choice of ideal dinner guests (Mandela, Berlin, Elizabeth I); the West Lothian question and Scottish schism.

Will the Conservatives win the next election? "No," he says without hesitation. Victory will come in the next but one election once we are Browned off.

Portillo may have switched from despatch box to commentary box, but still nothing whips him up like the cut and thrust of British politics.