Mary Portas: 'I'm one of the best in the world at retail'

http://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2014/may/17/mary-portas-im-one-of-the-best-in-the-world

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Mary Portas is in fighting mode. She's always been a fair old scrapper, but now she's going to give 'em both barrels. It's hard to know who "they" are exactly (politicians, press, rivals with vested interests, pessimists, doom-mongers, naysayers), but I do know I wouldn't fancy being them.

Three years ago the self-appointed queen of shops was appointed the government's high-street tsar. It was decreed that Portas would single-handedly revive the ailing British high street – first produce a report, then action it, and finally obliterate the recession/internet shopping/structural decline, the works. It was a canny move on behalf of the coalition. Portas appeared to be a natural Tory – somebody who had pulled herself up by her own designer laces, overcome adversity to succeed in business, a rock star Maggie Thatcher for the 21st century. The omnipresent Portas couldn't put a foot wrong – TV star, retail expert, fashion designer, corporate image revamper extraordinaire. She could lend some of her ineffable cool to a coalition in dire need of it. And if it all went tits up, well they could always blame her …

Which some might say is just what has happened. Portas, 53, duly produced her reports. Then local government minister Grant Shapps launched the Portas Pilot areas – 12 English towns that would rejuvenate their shopping areas with the help of Portas and a grant of £1.2m. It was a strange mix of hubris and flannel. And sure enough, the criticism came – the scheme was arrogant, window-dressing, under-funded; Portas was using it to advance her own career; she was making money from television shows based on work she said she was doing for government for free; she'd not visited some pilots; more shops than ever were closing, and on it went.

Now Portas has had enough. She's produced her own report on her report, illustrating exactly what she has done with her projects. She knows that not everything is rosy, but there are some success stories, and if she doesn't blow her own trumpet, who will? Next week she will go on Radio 4's Woman's Hour with volunteers to talk about how they have re-energised Rotherham through imaginative council funding, pop-up shops, parking price-freezes and bags of enthusiasm. At the same time, while Portas is stressing her bond with local communities, she is distancing herself from party politics.

We meet at her agency in London, where she employs 50 people. As soon as you walk in, you bask in the glow of superior branding. It's open-plan and populated by trendy young people. On tables that look like dachshunds (long and low, with stumpy legs) magazines are carefully laid out – Retail Week, Tate Guide, Marketing Week. Book shelves are piled high with New London Style. A notice by the front desk says: "Welcome to Portas. Please ring the bell and someone will pop around." Next to it is another note by a jug of water with fresh mint floating in it. "In the meantime, help yourself to some water and take a seat." It's attentive and considerate in a schoolteacherly way.

The agency used to be known as Yellowdoor. But it's gone the way of all things Mary. It's adopted her name. Her shows carry her name, her fashion line in House of Fraser, and now whole towns. At times, England seems little more than an extension of project Portas.

Within seconds, I have been greeted by name by an efficient and charming woman who fetches me tea. A minute later another efficient, charming woman delivers me to Portas. We climb the stairs and reach a sun-blitzed office where Portas is having her photograph taken. She is fabulously striking – the sharpest of orange bobs, blue shirt, dangly costume jewellery, boyfriend jeans, £4,000 Patek Philippe watch, black sandals highlighting the matching orange toenails. The room is colour co-ordinated with Portas – orange kettle, orange toaster, framed photograph of Vivienne Westwood with bright, orange hair. The photographer asks her to put her hands in her pockets. She's not keen. "It's a very butch look," she says disapprovingly. Her black schnoodle, Walter, is lying by her side. "Close your legs," says the photographer.

"The dog or me?" Portas smiles. She's warmer and quieter than she comes across on TV. On makeover shows such as hers, you have to be a know-all. In the Mary Queen of Shops series, she can be funny, scathing and supercilious. She bustles around in power boots telling useless retailers that they have no energy, passion, ability, flair, NOTHING, and then gives them a hug and tells them everything will be all right. In one show about the Chorlton-based men's outfitter Burt's, she announces that Mousy Mike "is only happy selling to his fellow comb-overs ... it's cringeworthy". She takes him for a haircut, shaves his Hitler tache and he morphs into Magnificent Mike (although the shop has subsequently shut). There are triumph-over tragedy stories – after Mary's sprinkled her magic dust, business bucks up. And that is part of the Portas controversy – in real life, her critics says, the truth is not always so obliging.

While I'm waiting, Portas suggests I take a look at her new report: "I wanted to do a paper that looked at what has been achieved and what actually is happening on the high streets, and move away from the political." She almost holds her nose when she says political.

I tell her I'm surprised – she seemed a natural Tory. She laughs – in horror, I think. "No, I'm not. I haven't ever voted Tory." she smiles. "My Wikipedia entry has me voting Conservative. You try changing Wikipedia!"

But she seemed happy to get into bed with Cameron's coalition? Ah, she says, that's the misconception about her work as tsar. "This isn't political. Deep down I'm a bit of a hippy. I believe in love!" She laughs and says her children get embarrassed when she says this. "And I believe in what's right. And I will work whatever way to make that happen."

And who would not want to help the high street, she asks."This is unimpeachably the right thing to do. It has nothing to do with politics for me. If I've been seen as the poster girl for this under the umbrella of the Conservative party, that's because someone else has put that spotlight on it."

For all that she has found working in communities over the past three years invigorating, she's found negotiating with politicians frustrating and even humiliating. Last September she appeared before the Communities and Local Government select committee after Bill Grimsey, the former boss of Wickes and Iceland, criticised the Portas pilot scheme for "promising the earth but delivering little". She looked devastated, as she addressed the committee – here she was trying to do her bit to help and she was being pilloried.

Today, she says, she still doesn't understand their attitude. "You've got 12 MPs trying to catch you out. What is that about? WHAT IS THAT ABOUT?" She was asked if she had received £500,000 from Channel 4 for making her high street series. No, she said, she wished she had. A day later, she corrected herself – she had not received £500,000 for this series, but she had received £500,000 over two years for 20 shows, of which three were in the high street series. Newspapers reported she had "misled MPS over £500,000 fee" and the Daily Mail ran an article asking, "Has Mary Portas passed her sell-by date?"

She is still hurt by the accusation. "I didn't lie," she says. "I didn't lie. I actually put an open letter out, saying I misinterpreted it, here's the truth. You're in there for an hour and a half. Phhhwww." She exhales heavily. "Your head space, it's like being in a court. The truth of it is I don't lie, I just don't lie. That was just horrible." Her voice cracks, and she looks on the verge of tears.

Anyway, she says, quickly regaining her composure, even if it had been true, what of it? "If Jamie Oliver decides to do something for the world, do people go 'He's making this much money, therefore he's a bastard?' No, they don't. What's that got to do with this? It's just manipulation. That's why, honestly, I say to you, Simon, I don't want to give it the oxygen because I'm just coming out of this."

She admits it got to her. "I'd wake up sometimes, and I'd just feel … just a little bit grey. I can't describe it another way." As you might imagine, Portas doesn't have much time for grey.

The only other time she says she felt grey was in her teens, when her parents died. Her mother was diagnosed with encephalitis in her 50s and was dead within two weeks. Her father, until then a busy salesman, went into decline. He sat in the front room, listening to old records, weeping for his wife. A year later he told Mary, then 17, that he had met another woman and was going to live with her. Six months on, he sold the house his children lived in, and they were left homeless. Was his second marriage good for him? "Well, he died a year later." Did he die happy? "No, he never loved her. No, he didn't die happy, silly old sod. He went from this 6ft 2in big Belfast man who worked, worked, worked, who raised five children, to a man who, through loss and being completely lost, neglected the most important part of his life, his children."

Portas's backstory really is quietly heroic. She turned down a place at Rada drama school to bring up her younger brother. She would cry on her way to school, and cry on her way back, but she didn't know she was depressed. She just endured, and by her early 20s she was married and dressing windows for Harrods. Before she was 30, she had rebranded Harvey Nichols and was on its board, and in 1997 she established her agency, Yellowdoor. In between this she has had three children – two with her former husband, Graham Portas, and a one-year-old son with her civil partner, Melanie Rickey. Yes, she says, she's taken the dramatic changes in her life in her stride, and has been lucky to enjoy two happy, and different relationships.

That is why her recent experience with politics has come as such a jolt. Has the backlash dented her confidence? "Yeah. Yeah, I never had it until this. It makes me feel just a little bit sad."

Her friends have told her to walk away, that she's done more than enough. But she's not having any of it. Yes, she's tired of being passed from politician to politician, but that doesn't mean she's shutting up. "I keep going back in with my pointy little elbows and going, 'Oh, who's the next minister then – Ed Davey, Grant Shapps, Mark Prisk, now there's Brandon Lewis.' It's been two and a half years, and I'm still the little constant face at the door." Are they going, "Oh God, not Portas again?" "I'm sure, I'm sure." She grins. Anyway, she says there are success stories. "In Rotherham where the banks wouldn't lend money, the council lent the money. How brilliant is that? How brilliant is that? HOW BLOODY BRILLIANT IS THAT? So to me, when I read some niggly little bit of tut in the paper that 'they've spent £250 learning how to gift wrap', I want to go, 'Where's the big picture here?'"

Would she do anything differently? "Yes, I would do it cross-party. Funnily enough, I bumped into Ed Miliband in the park and I said there's a big opportunity to do things across parties, and he said: 'Come and talk to me about it.'"

Does she think any of the criticisms of her work have been fair? Last week it was reported that nine out of 16 shops featured in Mary Queen of Shops have shut. "It's a non-story," she says. "You just have to go, OK, I did my best. Actually 50% of shops that I went into, that were on their knees, survive today. I think that's a bloody good result."

Does she ever wonder why she agreed to be shops tsar? "No, because that's me. If I think something can change and I can affect change, then I'll do it." As for the confidence dip, she says that was a blip. "I read somewhere that the three things that make people successful are this sort of superiority complex that 'I'm the best at what I do', the second is, 'I'm not good enough', and the third is understanding delayed gratification. I genuinely think, in terms of what I do in retailing, I am one of the best in the world. I do."

As for national politics, she's realised it's not her bag. "I can't do it. Politics should be about doing the right thing, right?" As England and Northern Ireland prepare for local elections, she says this is where she's placing her faith. "I have met some people in local politics and thought, 'God you are a good one, you really do believe this.' I've got a local councillor and he's one of the most beautiful people there is. He's there day and night."

If she was going to rebrand British politics, what would she do? "I'd show people like my local councillor, and the women who give the hours and want to make change to their area. That's the face I'd be putting on, and just wiping out those slimy people that try to give the face to frontline politics." She pauses. "I just don't like politics, to be quite honest."