10 things you need to know about Eric Pickles

Published by Ross Macmillan for 24dash.com in Housing and also in Communities, Featured, Local Government

In the second instalment of our fun new series, we give you 10 ‘facts’ about our beloved Communities Secretary Eric Pickles and ask you to guess which one is the great big porkie. Scroll down to the bottom of the page for the answer.

1. Eric the Red
Although regarded as one of the Conservative Party’s most ferocious attack dogs, Pickles was born into a Labour voting household and dabbled with Communism in his youth devouring the works of Trotsky and Marx. It was only when the Soviet Union invaded Czechoslovakia in 1968 that he switched his political allegiance from left to right. That said, some would argue that the 142 extra powers Pickles has given himself through the Localism Bill shows he still has Stalinist tendencies.

2. Supported by ‘cult’
At the 2001 general election, former BBC journalist and anti-sleaze campaigner Martin Bell stood against Pickles in Brentwood and Ongar over accusations that the Peniel Pentecostal Church had infiltrated the local Conservative branch. At the time, members of the Church, described by some former members as a ‘cult’, were alleged to have taken over parts of the Tory association and helped to fund Pickles’ re-election. Bell stressed there was no question of Pickles himself being involved in ‘sleaze’, but he was concerned that Conservative Central Office had failed to tackle the issue. Pickles’ majority was severely reduced, but he retained his seat by a margin of 2,821 votes.

3. Radio DJ
In 2009 Pickles formed an unlikely broadcasting double act with fellow MP, and former leader of Brentwood Council, Brandon Lewis. ‘The Eric and Brandon Show’ aired on obscure Essex radio station Phoenix FM and was billed as non-party political despite the fact the presenters were both arch Tories. It featured the two politicians interviewing local personalities interspersed with easy listening music.

4. Wikipedia page hacked by vandals
Online vandals last year decided to hack into our Eric’s Wikipedia page to add some additional ‘facts’ about his life.

At first glance, the Community Secretary’s page looked no different, until a few lines into the first paragraph readers discovered: “He is currently the only MP to have more than six chins, following the retirement of John Prescott.” Another dubious entry read: “In July 2006, a local fish and chip shop in Pickles’ Brentwood Constituency launched the ‘Eric Pickled Egg’. This was done without his consent and was interpreted as a personal attack on his weight. The offending item was removed from the menu three weeks later. Mr Pickles later said that the episode was ‘in bad taste’ and that he in fact disliked vinegar.” No source was cited for the bizarre story and no fish and chip shop has ever come forward to verify the claim. Disappointingly, the extra ‘facts’ have now been removed.

5. Question Time car crash
Appearing on Question Time during what he described as ‘hang an MP week’ at the height of the expenses row, Pickles had no problem hanging himself in front of three million viewers when he failed to justify, repeatedly, why he needed a second home in London when he lives just 37 miles away. Pickles tried to make out that getting to the House of Commons every morning for 9.30am required a near Herculean effort compared to showing up for a ‘normal’ job. Slammed by the panel, David Dimbleby and the audience, Pickles now looks back on the whole sorry episode with some remorse: “I’ve still got the disc and if I do something really well I always make sure to play it late at night just to remind myself.”

6. Loves the finer things in life
Despite slashing the budgets for housing and local government and leading a crackdown on ‘fat cat’ pay, Pickles seems to have been personally unaffected by the ‘age of austerity’. While even the untrained eye can spot he is a lover of fine food and drink, Pickles is also an admirer of expensive jewellery, clothes and cars. The Daily Mail’s Quentin Letts writes: “The girth is magnificent, majestic, worthy of Tongan royalty. The trendy, minimalist spectacles betray an unexpected measure of vanity. And it is true, there is something of the dandy to his dress sense. He likes jewellery and a fine cut of cloth.” Meanwhile, the Daily Mirror reported: “The Communities Secretary is resting his buttocks on the luxurious leather seats of a chauffeur-driven £70,000 Jaguar XJ. He traded up from the £20,000 eco-friendly Toyota Prius of Labour predecessor John Denham.” Must make that 37-mile journey to work easier to bear!

7. Tipped for football stardom
As a youth, Pickles was tipped for stardom on the football field. The right-winger had a successful trial with Bradford City and played six times for the reserves. His career was brought to a premature end when a supporter threw a pie at him during a mid-week friendly. Although the pastry was ‘delicious’, the meat filling was undercooked and Pickles suffered a severe bout of food poisoning that sidelined him for the rest of the season. Traumatised by the experience, Pickles now prefers sausage rolls and will only eat pies if there’s nothing else on offer in the CLG canteen.

8. ‘Tory Spice’
A well-known curry fan, the Bradford-born gastronome cost Ladbrokes a ‘small fortune’ when they offered odds of 5/6 that he would be unable to resist the lure of the hot stuff while in Birmingham at the Tory Party conference. The bookmaker said it would pay out to anyone who had proof of Pickles enjoying a ruby. But Eric put one over on the bookies by posing for a picture in a curry house then used Twitter to demand that Ladbrokes ‘pay out!’

9. Audit Commission ‘obsession’
Many thought there was an ulterior motive at play when Pickles brought the axe down on the ‘feather-bedded quango’. Some believed the decision stemmed back to his days as leader of Bradford Council when he announced a five-year plan to cut the council’s budget by £50m and reduce the workforce by a third. But there seems to be no evidence of any report slating Pickles and his radical approach. Since entering the House of Commons, however, he has repeatedly tabled questions about the Commission (45 between 2008 and 2010) so it was perhaps inevitable that he would look to ditch it at the first opportunity.

10. Calm down, dear
Before David Cameron was accused of sexist slurs in the Commons, Pickles allegedly said something similar to his opposite number Caroline Flint. She said on Twitter: “PM isn’t the only one fond of using ‘dear’ to put women down. Pickles used the same tactic on me.”

ANSWER: Number seven was the work of fiction. Hard to believe, I know, but Eric Pickles was never on Bradford City’s books and his career was not cut short by a poisonous pie. We are also unclear on his preferences in the CLG canteen. Or whether there is even a canteen at Eland House.