Tag Archives: eric pickles

Mark Pack

Eric Pickles slams Conservative councils for wasting money

By Mark Pack | Tue 30th December 2008 - 4:56 pm

What else can one make of this? Eric Pickles has been in the media today calling for pay cuts for the most highly paid local council chief executives. But what’s this at the foot of the report about Eric Pickles and his proposals The Times? It’s a list of the eight highest paid local council chief executives.

I think you can guess what might be coming next …

Yes indeed, let’s look at who runs these councils:

Bexley (Conservative)
Ealing (Conservative)
Hertfordshire (Conservative)
Kensington & Chelsea (Conservative)
Kingston upon Hull (Lib Dem)
Newham (Labour)
Suffolk County Council (Conservative)
Surrey County Council (Conservative)

Yup, that would be six out of eight …

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Posted in Local government | 3 Comments
The Voice

Top Conservatives fall out over waste collection policies

By The Voice | Thu 27th November 2008 - 9:00 am

Via the BBC:

From January English councils will be able to bid for pilot schemes to incentivise people for recycling more and deter them from throwing stuff away …

Eric Pickles, Conservative local government spokesman, has regularly criticised the “hated bin taxes”…

But Paul Bettison, a Conservative councillor responsible for waste on the Local Government Association said: “I wish Eric Pickles would stop calling them bin taxes. It is very galling.

“They are bin charges. They are not taxes at all. You pay for the service you get. The current system of invisible waste charges is much more like a tax.

“I know

…

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Posted in News | 2 Comments
Alix Mortimer

Is it time for the Tories to ditch George Osborne?

By Alix Mortimer | Fri 10th October 2008 - 7:11 pm

None of our biz, of course, but that shouldn’t stop us poking our big yellow beak in, should it?

In a time of headlines like London shares slump is worst for 21 years, Panic selling piles pressure on G7 leaders and Councils trapped in £1bn black hole (and that’s just today’s), the old grandees of economics are increasingly on a media roll. These are people who can interpret moment-by-moment macro-economic unravelling with a nimbleness and acuity that can’t be faked with slick presentation and a good researcher. Suppose, for example, HSBC went into receivership in the middle of Newsnight? You can’t just get on your Blackberry and ask for three paragraphs and a killer metaphor involving rooves and sunshine with Jeremy Paxman glaring at you. Big serious suits containing big serious people fill (often literally) our screens every evening.

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Posted in News | Also tagged | 15 Comments
Mark Pack

Eric Pickles apologises for John Prescott bulimia joke

By Mark Pack | Wed 1st October 2008 - 9:03 pm

The Independent website has the Press Association’s story:

A Tory frontbencher was forced to apologise today after expressing pride that he might have contributed to John Prescott’s bulimia.

Shadow local government secretary Eric Pickles admitted he had been “silly” to mock the former Deputy Prime Minister’s condition at a party fringe event last night.

Mr Pickles told the audience in Birmingham that he could sometimes be a “complete b**tard” to political opponents.

“When old Prescott came out as bulimic I thought, ‘I wonder if I’ve added to that’,”

…

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Posted in News | 5 Comments
Alix Mortimer

Whither the liberal Tories now?

By Alix Mortimer | Wed 13th August 2008 - 9:30 am

Well, that was the Cameronian mood music that was. A Conservative government, announced shadow Home Secretary Dominic Grieve yesterday, would amend current legislation so that the police would no longer need to seek higher authorisation in order to do the following to any citizen they please:

  • Use covert video or listening devices in premises or vehicles.
  • Watch premises to identify or arrest suspects.
  • Conduct visual surveillance of public locations.
  • Patrol, in uniform or plain clothes.
  • Use thermal imaging and X-ray technology.
  • Conduct surveillance using visible CCTV cameras.

That’s quite some capability to be put in the hands of every Detective

…

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Posted in News | Also tagged | 28 Comments
Stephen Tall

BBC Question Time: open thread

By Stephen Tall | Thu 29th May 2008 - 9:46 pm

‘Fraid there are no Lib Dem panellists on tonight’s Question Time, (broadcast on BBC1 and online from 10.35 pm GMT) – but only for the second time in three weeks so no complaints from me.

The panel will include the government’s chief whip, Labour’s Geoff Hoon, the shadow secretary of state for communities and local government, the Tories’ Eric Pickles, the Green Party member of the European parliament for the South East of England Caroline Lucas, the historian and broadcaster Dan Snow and the director of Global Vision Ruth Lea.

If you want to sound-off as you watch, please feel free …

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Posted in Lib Dem TV and News | Also tagged | 12 Comments
Mark Pack

Lib Dems start spring conference with election victory

By Mark Pack | Fri 2nd March 2007 - 3:07 pm

With only one by-election last night and with lots of Liberal Democrat activists en route to Harrogate for our (UK) spring conference, not much attention has been given to the result … but it was a Lib Dem gain from the Conservatives in Eric Pickles’s constituency. Congratulations to David Kendall and his team.

More details here.

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Recent Comments

  • Jenny Barnes
    "Some properties may not be sold for several tens of years – how do you propose to rate those for tax purposes until they are sold?" you go back to the last...
  • Nonconformistradical
    "If yearly revaluations are too onerous, rerate on sale and increase yearly by inflation until next sold." Some properties may not be sold for several tens o...
  • Ben C
    Just revaluing & updating council tax bands doesn't seem particularly revolutionary. Why not push for a proportional property tax (or, yes, an LVT) and d...
  • nigel hunter
    Nothing wrong with having a trade or going to Uni. Port Talbot IS producing steel and will develop further with the electric arc system.I would think nobody wa...
  • Jack Meredith
    @Cassie Ah, I see. My apologies for not being more straightforward: the point I was trying to make was the opposite - that Farage views my degree as inferior...