WERE You Still Up for Portillo? Such was the low regard in which the former MP for Enfield Southgate was once held that Brian Cathcart's book of this title, charting the collapse of the Conservative vote in the 1997 general election, became an instant bestseller. The nation did not exactly rejoice at the fall of the man whom Margaret Thatcher saw as her natural successor, but it did produce a collective smirk. Yet he made it back to parliament and restored his reputation to such an extent that it was possible yesterday for him to announce his departure at the next election and garner some sincere tributes.

Chief among the mourners at his departure was Michael Howard, the new Conservative leader, who had offered him a job. In rejecting politics in favour of a career in the media, Mr Portillo has landed his boss with a headache, made worse when Kenneth Clarke, another centre-left figure, said he would not accept a shadow cabinet role either. Mr Howard may yet find a way of leading his party from ''the centre'', as he has promised, but he will feel the loss of such big hitters.

Will politics and parliament, too, feel the loss of Mr Portillo? It is a pity that, having travelled so far from right to left in his party, the MP for Kensington and Chelsea should now be buying a ticket out. Politics needs independent thinkers, and that is what Mr Portillo had become. He had the courage to change, to become his own man and admit to past mistakes, yet in the end he felt there was no place for him. Politics may not be poorer for his loss, but it will certainly be less interesting.