A great mixture of humour, charm and incisive opinions made An Audience With Michael Portillo an enjoyable experience at a packed De La Warr Pavilion.

The controversial former Tory MP’s self-deprecating wit and amusing anecdotes were evident from the start as he told us how a big political future was behind him.

He took questions in the second half, talking frankly about his unsuccessful leadership fight in 2001 and dramatic election defeat at Enfield Southgate in 1997.

I asked if he agreed he would have made a better Prime Minister than David Cameron. He replied, “I don’t agree. I am a supporter of Cameron, though not everything is going well for him. If I had won the leadership fight it would have been by the tiniest slither – a recipe for disaster, and I would have suffered the same fate as Iain Duncan Smith.”

Asked if he thought Boris Johnson could become Prime Minister, he said, “Boris is not up to the job.”

Portillo also talked about how Margaret Thatcher and Tony Blair contributed to their own downfalls, the immigration problem, his new career in television and his warm relationship with Labour’s Diane Abbott.