Pickles expects 17 more Tory MPs to stand down at the next election because of expenses

Tankus

Iain Dale is about to become Pickles's newest bestest friend.

Verity

Oh, I see that James has now signed the piece.

2trueblue

Whats in a number? The real wuestion is; what will it take for all MPs of all parties to realise that the public are truely fed up with all of them for the cavalier way they continue to dip into our pockets? They still don't get it, do they? The new plan is no better, just a different way of fleecing us. Numbers are not important, integrity is. If you don't have it GO.

Verity

Tankus - Iain Dale is a long-time supporter of Mr Pickles. It was Iain who introduced Pickles to a wider audience, through an instant messenger type interview on his blog.

Alex

Great pic

Stephen

Maybe Pickles also ought to consider re-introducing the Rotten Borough ethos. At the time of the worst recession since the 30's we don't need our MP's drawn from the pool of failed social workers and nerds from the back offices of the major parties["Child" Osborne a case in point?]. Better someone who has succeeded in a proper job rather than someone who has found he can't hack it in the City or some local Polytechnic masquerading as a university.
Out here in China millonaires are now welome in the Communist Party!

drakes drum

Is Pickles going to be one of them, alongwith Maude, Gove, Duncan and the rest of the expenses grabbing shadow cabinet?

I very much doubt it. One law for Shadow Cabinet members and another for everyone else. "Twas in the rules", dont you know!!

Cameron has acted quite despicably over this issue. It is the one sure sign that he intends to govern by clique...A public school clique at that.

Ladies and Gentlemen, may I present ' The Bullington Government'.

We should all consider that it was the Bullington Club, where Cameron honed his leadership qualities!

Bully boy tactics,
'arrogance and superiority, a better than thou mentality', not forgetting that old term, but quite apt for Cameron 'snobbish'!

Totally out of touch with the majority of the people.Leading the Country with true Etonian vision!

The silver tongue brigade telling the rest of us to eat cake, no doubt.

Pickles should make absolutely sure he and his party do not make the same mistake as the Labour Party with their former representative from Norwich North.

Cameron should consider that his 'popularity'is based on the total incompetence of the Labour Government and absolutely nothing to do with him.

He must also remember that he would be a fool to believe the words written praising him by compliant journalists.

I pray that people will not fall for the Blair tactics again.

Pete-s

ANYBODY who has been a social worker should be automatically barred from being a candidate. The Lab MP majority is full of bleedin hearts, look where that has gor us.

DM

I really hope the Tories do take this excellent opportunity to add substantial real life experience into the Westminster village bubble. Plus constituents get local people representing them, rather than fly in young bright career Tories.

Chuck Unsworth

Interesting that Pickles thinks it would be a good thing to have as candidates "lots of doctors, lots of social workers, lots of community nurses … people who've got involvement with the community outside the political process".

Interesting, too, that he seems to believe that these people, who are largely paid (and paid for) by the taxpayer are 'outside the political process'.

I'm not so sure.

Ray

Any chance of those "new-style Tories with little or no background in Conservative politics" also being Conservatives?

drakes drum

DM...just like the new Norwich Tory MP.

Still wet behind the ears. Absolutely little knowledge of life outside school/college/university and politics.

This is the Cameron vision, get used to it!
He is following the path trod by Blair!

Alf Tupper C.R.O.F.

I think your layout person has a fine sense of humour. EP looks like he's been crammed into a specimen jar.

Eric. Pickled.

Seriously though, I'd like to know how 'party political experience' does not itself qualify as 'working in the community'?

Or must that necessarily entail 'outreaching' to some of the 'marginalised'?

JohnAnt

Great - find the social groups who have been most exposed to NuLab's PC indoctrination for ten years, and get them to stand for MP.
Let me think. How many sensible, anti-statist, business-minded doctors, social workers and community nurses do I personally know?
One's heart sinks.

Colin

The question is: Will Gove be amongst them?

MikeF

It should be "try to expand", for heaven's sake, not "try and expand". The latter formulation is not an acceptable alternative; it is simply iliterate.

MikeF

...though my spelling of 'illiterate' with a single 'l' was merely a typo...

Alf Tupper C.R.O.F.

MikeF

Surely there is a way that to use the phrase "try and expand" is not only perfectly legitimate, but quite commendable in the way it ellipses the need to state fully, whilst still conveying the meaning: "try and in so doing, expand".

Not sloppiness I would say, just elegance.

Verity

"We've got ourselves a good mix: lots of doctors, lots of social workers, lots of community nurses". Aaaarrggg! Dave's got it wrong yet again! The man cannot connect with the electorate on any level. He is politically tone deaf. Does he really think that what business people and professional people want to be governed by social workers, council workers etc? I mean, does he really believe that? If so, he is so divorced from reality that he needs to be put in a quiet room, not be running a political party.

So we've gone from the 'A' list to the 'Dregs' list in one easy swoop! Does he understand that the Conservatives stand for independence, individual striving, strong fammilies, self-sufficiency ... not Gramsci/Trot social workers, street football coordinators and diversity trainers? Is he totally insane?

Dave, sit down quietly and have a cup of tea and listen up: we want as MPs achievers like William Hague, who has proved in spades that he can operate very successfully in the private sector and knows what the private sector needs to thrive (thus spreading the wealth whose creation they have facilitated).

I have absolutely no interest in the indigenous dregs of Britain or Third World "immigrants". There was a photo in The Mail today of a mother holding a seven year old girl who goes to school and is still in nappies because "they're so comfortable these days". So her mother never taught her to go to the loo. But judging from the kid's face, Mummy has taught her everything she'll ever need to know about make-up.

When I read that Dave quote, I went back and read it again, thinking I'd missed the punch line.

John Lea

Eric Pickles embodies everything that's wrong with modern British politics: a career politician who has milked the system for all its worth. A qualification that makes him absolutely perfect for a career in Blue Labour.

Verity

"We've got ourselves a good mix: lots of doctors, lots of social workers, lots of community nurses …".

I just read it again, in disbelief.

Is it irony?

Was there a punch line that didn't get printed?

Andrew Zalotocky

Is that a picture of Eric Pickles or a Mercator projection?

JohnAnt

I never understand why UKIP doesn't make more of a meal of it, whenever the Tories shoot themselves in the foot like this.
That too (UKIP's amateurishness) is as depressing as Dave's Direly Dithering Drivel.

David Ossitt

"Out here in China millonaires are now welome in the Communist Party!"

THEY ALWAYS WERE!

TGF UKIP

Ho, ho, ho, thanks, James, it's pieces like this which I so much enjoy and help confirm my contempt for the Heir and his silly but dangerous gang.

I'm sure along with a lot of other Coffee Housers I will have a great deal of fun over the next few years alluding to this post when these public sector temporary Tories, one by one, start defecting back to Labour.

Verity

They're plants by Common Purpose, planted with the full knowledge and consent of Daft Dave.