Eric Pickles Gives a Mea Culpa to Andrew Neil
Iain Dale 6:00 PM
Eric Pickles has been interviewed by Andrew Neil on the BBC STRAIGHT TALKprogramme, which goes out on the New Channel tomorrow. Here's the exchange about his experience on last week's QUESTION TIME.
You gotta love him.
Andrew Neil: You were also brought in because you were seen to be a man of the people, so how could a man of the people make such a Horlicks of Question Time, as you did last week?
Eric Pickles: I think you’re being kind to me; I think it was worse than a Horlicks. It was like, it was like a car crash in slow motion, and which you’re just trying to steer away and the worse, the worse, the more I tried to steer away the worse it was. So actually...
AN: Didn’t you see it coming?
EP: Yes, that’s the worst thing, and you could see the conclusion coming and I made the mistake of making actually quite a trivial point. I should have been...but it has changed my views. It’s changed my views.
AN: Tell me why, and how...
EP: I used to think that actually all we needed to do was to increase the transparency and to increase the auditing. I don’t think that at all. I think we need a completely different system. I am embarrassed...
AN: A different manner of payment?
EP: Oh, absolutely. I am, I cannot justify Members of Parliament claiming flatscreen televisions, buying beds, buying 3-piece suites, buying cookers, buying microwaves. And the fact is, I have never done that and would never dream of doing that - as we say up north, ‘I buy me own bed’ - doesn’t in any way make me less guilty. It’s the fact I can, and I think we need to have a much more clearer, which removes all discretion, I don’t want to find ourselves in a position where somebody can’t be a Member of Parliament unless they are, to use your phrase, ‘a southern toff’, or somebody sponsored by a union, but I just feel now that the three party leaders have to come up to a conclusion. I think in many ways an inquiry is pointless. I mean, I heard you the other day; you went through all the various options, they’re pretty there, and we’re going to have to grab it, and I think we’ve got to be on the basis where it’s a lot less...
AN: For your expenses?
EP: Oh yes, absolutely, absolutely.
AN: Does David Cameron share your view on this?
EP: I think he does. If you recall him speaking last Wednesday saying that the Party leaders needed to decide, and I think they should.
You gotta love him.
Adam Smith Director Asked: Your Papers Please...
Iain Dale 4:30 PM
The man on the left of the picture is Eamonn Butler, the excellent Director of the Adam Smith Institute. He is the author of a new book called the ROTTEN STATE OF BRITAIN. He writes about Britain becoming a Police State. How very appropriate then, that he should have an encounter with the law this morning while being interviewed by Canadian TV. I'll let him take up the story...
There I was, this morning, doing an interview in the office for a Canadian TV station (they took shots of The Rotten State of Britain to use, and asked for a copy too). We'd finished the inside shots, so we went outside to do some set-ups of me walking down the street. After about 2 minutes up screeched a red police car, and two armoured officers got out to ask our business. Pretty obvious, I'd have thought, since the cameraman had a huge camera on a tripod and the interviewer was carrying one of these big microphones like a shaggy dog. But they had to provide identification and fill in forms – name, address, date of birth, height...
Sure, we're in Westminster, but I wouldn't have thought that Church House, where we are, is a particularly sensitive building.
The cameraman suggested that it was obvious what we were doing, and why did he need to fill in his details. The police officer explained that since we were on at least four different security cameras, they just had to go through the procedure.
Note: Gordon Brown claims he is inspired by Adam Smith.
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