21 May 2015
In a Pickle
by R J Thomas
Whatever has happened to Eric Pickles? He is, with the greatest respect, hardly a man you could miss. Large, jovial, and free spoken with a disarming northern bluntness, he has been the living embodiment that there is Tory life north of Retford – even if he sits for the London suburban seat of Brentwood and Ongar. But since the election he seems to have vanished. He was the most high profile figure to leave the cabinet, which is considerably diminished without him.
Surely he cannot have retired – he retained his seat with a massive majority, over 58 % of the local vote, and he is a mere 63, just getting into his stride. Most of his ministerial career was dealing with local government and building and development planning policy. He spent the entire first term of the coalition in one job, as Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government, one of Cameron’s safest pairs of hands. Even his political opponents admit that he did a good job there. He delivered a key Cameron manifesto pledge – that of localism. He combined this with a belief in reducing government and interference from Whitehall, so his message to the local authorities for whom he was responsible was that they should be doing less, but if they accepted that role and did it well, then they would be left alone to do it.
Pickles had an eye to what makes for a popular Tory. He harangued councils to revert to weekly bin rounds and provided financial incentives to pay for it. He encouraged the flying of flags. He pressed planning authorities to get on with local plans (not always with much success, it must be admitted) to give certainty to worried locals and enable proper long-term decisions to be made in relation to land use. One of the most difficult parts of the job he occupied was to take the final decision in planning battles; and it is measure of his clear thinking and even handedness that, though his decisions were inevitably often unpopular, they were always well thought through. This grasp of local sensitivities and the sometimes peculiar ways of councils and councillors was not surprising – Pickles was a Bradford (Yorkshire) councillor at the age of 27 and by 1988 had made the Conservatives such a force that they were able to take control of Bradford City Council under his leadership. That launched Pickles on the national stage as MP for his present seat in 1992. By 2002 he was shadow secretary for local government. In 2009 – 10 he was chairman of the Conservative Party; not perhaps the perfect job for him as the machinations of the old boy dominated backrooms and an unforgiving sense of humour did not make him hugely popular among the officer class of the Tory Party.
Ah yes, that sense of humour. Like the Duke of Edinburgh’s, it is not always obvious, and even when it is, it can cause offence. Asked what sanctions should be taken against those who left their dustbins in the street he allegedly said “Flog them”. Pickles dramatic pause. “Though flogging is too good for ‘em”.
And, like most Yorkshiremen, he could be very direct. That does not always go down well in the Tory Party, or in Whitehall. But it did with the voters, and also, though it bruised the local councillors and councils who he attacked mercilessly for waste and incompetence, for their confusion and waste of public money, he also did get central government off their backs and gave them back local autonomy. It is not at all a bad legacy to leave.
But why should Eric be leaving a legacy yet? He is the very embodiment of how Toryism can reach out to the ordinary bloke in the street, a minister who understands normal life and issues and can cut through the bumpf to get things done.
Time to come back Eric, we need more of you. And the perfect job awaits – selection of Tory candidates for the next election. Fill those northern marginals with straight speaking clear thinking humorous young Pickles. It’s bound to be a winner.
