Pickles is Another Porker in the Public Trough
Have just watched the bit of Question Time last night where Tory chairman Eric Pickles got a deserved roasting over his expense claims:
Audience Member: “Do you think Fred Goodwin should give some of his pension back Eric?”
Eric Pickles: “Yeah, I do.”
Audience Member: “Right – that’s because he’s behaved immorally, unreasonably perhaps. But he’s played within the rules! Don’t you think that’s a bit hypocritical?”
Eric Pickles: “I had my flat – I bought my flat when we regularly sitting until two in the morning. I bought my flat when we did that. I bought that flat because it turned out –“
[Audience member: “sell it!”]
Eric Pickles: “OK well I’ll sell it. Of course I could sell it. I am never going to be able to satisfy you folks, at all, because I am an MP and therefore guilty.”
Pickles is right about MPs being guilty – they are almost all at it. Why should taxpayers pay him tens of thousands extra just because he doesn’t want a 37 mile commute? He claims he has to get up at 5.30 a.m. to be in the office for 9.30 a.m. – anyone would think he was cycling from Brentwood to Westminster it took him so long. It takes 80 minutes according to National Rail, less by car.
Many years ago when Guido slaved away in a City bond dealing room he used to be in the office for 6 a.m., often leaving after the close of the U.S. markets at 9 p.m. at night. Many of Guido’s co-workers were Essex boys who lived in the far wilds in places like Brentwood and had to commute further than 37 miles every day. It is just not on to expect the taxpayers to subsidise MP’s lazy piggy ways.
First
I haven’t seen you on PB
OT
1,200,266 Hannan views – Is PB running a book? 2 million by Sunday?
Don’t forget to add travel time to and from the station at each end – and interconnection time between main line and tube …..
If an MP is working over 65 hours a week then I would say that anything over a 40 minute door-to-door commute is a good reason to have a flat close by.
But having said that – if they want a flat close to parliament, they have gotta spend every waking hour doing proper work for their constituents. Anything less than that and they can commute like the rest of us.
It comes to something when Charles Clarke had a better night of it on QT than Eric Pickles did.
Where is Charles Clarke’s constituency? Not in outer London.
Its Norwich in fact . He will not travel home every night.
In 2006/7 his Additional Cost Allowance was £22,110 – joint 1st (Pickles, £16,197 – 485th)
His total expenses £143,137 – 209th (Pickles, £127,496 – 488th)
Why should Pickles be buggered and bleary eyed if he has to debate with the likes of Clarke?
The nihilists on these threads are beyond parody. But they give Guido a living. And Guido’s television performances leave a lot to be desired. Perhaps Pickles should have worn a T-Shirt.
Pickles made a poor fist of defending himself politically.
But he is right. Mostly.
And he is being honest. He is not claiming his second home allowance for his parents. He is not claiming a spare room as his main home and taking money from expenses to fund his true main home.
He is claiming so that he does not have to travel far during the week.
Big deal.
You think its terrible. Generous maybe but not criminal.
It will be NHS ‘managers’next in line to be pilloried and have their windows broken.
How come the rest of us can’t claim for the cost of a second home so we don’t have to commute to work?
Because Labour are troughing Huhnes.
Pickles is a Tory !!!!!!!!!!!
Exactly Guido. I used to work long hours in banking and if you worked late, you could get a taxi home, not a second mortgage. Twenty quid, not twenty grand.
I had a secretary from very close to Brentwood, she’s probably a constituent of Pickles and she made it to work each day before 9am. Pickles is supposed to serve, no?
burn them at the stake!
Too right Guido – keep exposing these piggies….
It’s hard to look at fatso’s picture without savouring the demise of his more distinguished namesake – the mongrel who found the World Cup in 1966:
And Pickles’luck also ran out the year after his great find. ‘My six-year-old had him on a choke lead,’recalls Corbett [his owner]. ‘He shot after a cat and pulled my son over, before disappearing. I looked for over an hour. Then, in the gardens behind my house I saw him up on a tree. His chain was around the branch. Pickles just hung there.’
If only…
In fairness it probably does take him a while to winch himself out of bed and wash himself with a rag on a stick.
Pickles was a disgrace last night. He did give the audience a good laugh though when he tried to explain why he needed a second home.
Dimbleby was particularly good when, after a long explanation from Pickles, he said “like a job”.
Is Pickles a gayer?
But the Commons doesn’t sit late very often these days so as to keep the ‘wimmin’happy who want to piss off home rather than sort out the Country.
If an MP has to work late and needs to stop over can’t they simply book into a B&B for the night?
If flats or houses are needed, then the state should buy it an when no longer needed sell it and use that money to fund public services, not let fat arsehole MPs pocket the profit when we’ve paid fo rit in the first place.
Guido is spot on. All MPs are thieving fucking bastards.
To be fair, there are probably some who are not “on the take”.
Same applies to councillors, for example. I’ve put in 26 years without ever needing to understand the rules on “subsistence allowances” as I’ve never felt the need to claim. I’ve known others who would study their watches and cheer when the length of the meeting meant they could claim their six quid or whatever. Pathetic.
But good and bad in all circles.
Agreed. Indeed, I know I was not alone on our council (Medway) in claiming absolutely nothing during those eight years. I imagine annual figures for all councillors (here or anywhere else) could be obtained under the FoI, if anyone were interested.
But the Commons doesn’t sit late very often these days so as to keep the ‘wimmin’ happy who want to piss off home rather than sort out the Country.
Given how dangerous most Labour policy is these days, I’m glad they’re sodding off early and not “sorting out the country”. God forbid if they actually had time to pass more legislation!
ade – you got in before me !!!!
They still don’t get it, do they? Keep up the good work Guido, name and shame at every opportunity until you’ve exposed every one of the troughing bastards…..
Are you an in-law of the excellent Mr Jardon, perchance?
This has been a great campaign, well done Guido.
It’s just so sad that they (nearly) all appear to be at it.
What makes them turn to greed like this?
And what about their voting patterns? Presumably they’ve voted to serve themselves and their greedy friends.
May I point readers to the following:
Home Time in the HOC
Extract here – I’m no expert so perhaps a reader knows when the Committees sit – particularly the one Mr Pickles claimed sat regularly until midnight.
Frequently Asked Questions: Business
What are the sitting (meeting) hours of the House of Commons?
2.30-10.30pm on Mondays and Tuesdays
11.30am-7.30pm on Wednesdays
10.30am-6.30pm on Thursdays
9.30am-3pm on sitting Fridays
Glossary: Sittings
Commons Library Factsheet: Sittings of the House
What are the sitting (meeting) hours for Westminster Hall debates?
9.30am-2pm on Tuesdays
9.30-11.30am and 2.30-5pm on Wednesdays
2.30-5.30pm on Thursdays
Glossary: Westminster Hall debates
Commons Library Factsheet: Sittings of the House
When will the House of Commons sit on a Friday during the current session?
27 February 2009
6, 13, 20 & 27 March 2009
24 April 2009
8 & 15 May 2009
12, 19 & 26 June 2009
3 July 2009
16 October 2009
In fact the hours that Parliament sits are largely irrelevant because most MPs aren’t seen in the chamber from one week to the next. They’re always explaining that they’re too busy answering constituents’letters about bin collections to sit in the House. In that case, let them do it between 9 and 5 and then they can go home at their own expense like everyone else.
What worried me was not so much his milking the system but his complete incoherence. A great lump incapable of speech or thought: what on earth is this man doing as Chairman of the Conservative Party?
That was what disappointed and appalled me, too. This is the chairman of the party in which I have little faith since (a) its strategy for the next election is to allow NuLab to lose, rather than making an effort to oppose, (b) its guiding principle seems to be to promote its leader as a Bliar look-alike and (c) its only member with cojones (the sainted Hannan) languishes in Europe.
Yet it is this party on which I have to depend to deliver me from the current junta of vile gangsters.
It’s a dismal prospect – Pickles as chairman, Dave as leader and some sixth-former as chancellor, with the demob-happy Ken blowing raspberries from the wings.
(This is 15 again.) Yes, I agree with you. I feel so angry at the way our country has been trashed and bankrupted by the psychopathic Brown, and yet the Conservatives won’t oppose. I keep on thinking of what Labour did to Major: why won’t the Conservatives do that to Brown?
You pose an interesting Q, Anon #96. Why don’t the Tories really oppose?
I have no idea of the true answer but, for want of a better guess, I reckon that there might be two reasons.
(1) Many of the top bods are doing rather financially well out of MPs’pay + shadow cabinet pay with no real responsibility + (crucially) directorships and fees. Who, they might ask, in his right mind would want to relinquish that, especially for …….
(2) Winning the next election would be to receive a hospital pass. All they can expect is loss of fees etc for constant vilification on a scale not seen since Thatcher’s first term (and it was really fierce then), without the potential benefits that she was able eventually to crystallise via the privatisations and tax breaks. Taking on Broon’s mess would merely guarantee presiding over a permanent midnight of the soul on the part of the entire nation.
No, far better to remain on the periphery, have the luxury of being able to criticise without the responsibility that goes with power and collect the winnings.
(I write not as a Tory-basher but in the sincere wish that another party will supplant this bunch of incompetent crooks. Since there is no obvious competent alternative to the present gang, I fear for my country.)
Thw cost of commuting is not an allowed relief against income, so how come MPs can claim anything for a second home. They are all bastards. And if any MP thinks I’m being negative then tough. Bastards! Bastards! Bastards!
This is the whole point.
The MPs have granted themselves special priviledges that are unavailable to us mere mortals.
If MPs had to live by the same rules and regs that they impose on us, then they may be more inclined to take more interest in the punitive tax regime Gordum Broon has imposed on the nation.
On Question Time, Pickles admitted he claimed a second home allowance as he lived 37 miles from his home constituency and therefore needed to leave his constituency house at 5.30am in order to get to Westminster for 9.30am. However, subsequent investigation into rail timetables show that, even allowing for half an hour to get from his house to the nearest railway station, he could leave at 7.20am and still be at Westminster comfortably by 9am.
Looks like Napoleon from Animal Farm.
HA!
“It takes 80 minutes according to National Rail, less by car.”
80 minutes! – FFS!! – you could WALK from Brentwood to Westminster in that time.
What train are they quoting on, The Hogwarts Express?
Walk 20 miles in 80 minutes? Schnell indeed.
Figuratively speaking, of course…
It so happens that while Pickles was being broadcast (on a Thursday evening) a public bill committee was sitting, and continued to do so until 4am.
No matter. Guido won’t truly be happy until he has eliminated representative democracy in this country.
What utter garbage. On the very rare occasion the House doesn’t rise until 4am, or that a committee finshes at that time, what is wrong with a taxi and a modest hotel room? Just like ordinary mortals have to. And a 5.30 start for a 9.30 arrival? Even the railways aren’t that slow. Give me strength! This was undoubtedly just about the most lame ‘explanation’I have ever heard, and particularly from a Conservative.
Was Pickles really the best choice I wonder? His inarticulate mumblings suggest otherwise.
Yes but dear old Pickles is unable to get the train because he is too fat and moving such a heavy bulky load like his honerable good self through the morning London rush hour is simply not practicable on the public railway. He would require a heavy duty low loader and a Police wide load escort. Greedy Fat Tory Toff.
Is this what you’re on about? McAvoy’s Revenge
It’s hardly typical is it? The 4 MPs (inc the lovely Dawn Butler, friend to Obama) should have turned up at the right time on the right day.
McAvoy’s Revenge link broke
Sorry, the page you were looking for in the blog Iain Dale’s Diary does not exist.
SORRY, THIS SHOULD WORK
At that hour of the morning they most probably woken from sleep by the cleaner wanting to clean the room rather than doing any productive work.
Sitting for that length of time is counter productive at best and a complete waste of time for everyone.
If if he bothered to attend its no different to thousands of shift workers who travel hundreds of mile to keep down a job. Bollocks to the grasping fuckers.
not possible to eliminate something that does not exist
These guys are going to be the BIG FAT worry when we get a Tory Government. They will think they have won, therefore earned a right to stuff themselves at the taxpayer’s expense. They hope we will be so glad to get rid of Brown that eyes will be taken off the ball.
You do wonder how much our forefathers lost to this shower before we had the new age of newspapers and the internet.
what a lunatic asylum the h.o.c is!
diane abbott said last night that about 50% of mps do not understand that the public hate them………
what a cock!
it is about 25-30 miles from brentwood to westminster…….maybe 30 mins to liverpool st then 20 on the tube.
i live in the southend area……..from here THOUSANDS of people commute with a 7.30 or 8 am start!
and paying around £3000 pa for the privilege……..
not allowed to put that against tax!
i think the only thing many of them will understand is dismissal.
or garrotting!
Of course fatso can’t ever satisfy us, “because he’s an MP” – he’s as bad as the rest of them, finding loop holes and ways to expolit the public purse and get his fat snout as far into the trough as poss. In a democracy they would be placed on trial.
Do believe that I smell of roasting long pork, pork is not very nice if over done, I hope that they do not over cokk the long piggies, mind some people like crackling.
That should be long pig, sorry spoiled it
The problem is, and I’ve said it on here before. but, unless this system is ‘really’reformed it will keep happening. That would probably mean getting rid of politcians all together, and having a court and ‘King’style system, or getting rid of the monarchy, as most of our system is based on age old traditions.
The only other way is to up their salary and take away their perks, they would as one person suggested surely be able to afford three or four nights in a B&B that way. Or better still, build Halls of Residences for the greedy sods?
http://www.plenty2say.com
When I was a boy we lived on the Yorkshire moors.
On leaving school I was apprenticed to a surgical appliance manufacturer who’s workshop was in Chorlton-cum-Hardy, some 200 miles from my home address. Earning only two shillings and sixpence a week I had no alternative but to live at home and cycle each morning to my place of employment. The outward journey would take me 5 hours (downhill) and 7 hours to return after work. It did me no harm and made me appreciate Sundays and the Christmas holidays.
Get a life Mr.Pickles and get on your bike you porky git.
200 miles in 5 hours? An AVERAGE of 40mph??? Must gave been a fucking monster hill! Or a fabulous bike….
When I was a boy of ten I travelled thirty miles on foot to get t’pit to do a fourteen hour shift before walking home for mi dinner, black bread and blood soup. I had to milk t’cow and clean t’pigs art before gioing to’bed at 3am, to be up at 4am to bring cows up for milking then off t’pit again. Heee, they were grand days.
Twat
Utter bollocks
what a load of bollocks
Whe I was t lad i used to get up half hour before I went t’bed, clean t’lake before going t’work 6000miles away with no shoes on…..One assumes the 200 miles was a round trip, if that’s the case then I apologise for my what a load of bollocks remark.
It’ll be some rope that hangs that fucker
Quite. Miss Lola No. 3 has to drive 36 miles return trip each day to get to work. She is paid moderately. She rents a flat. She really cannot afford the car, and public transport could not possibly allow her to make the trip in any feasible time in the semi rural area where I live. OK you say so what? Well the so what is that I have to subsidise her for roughly the amount she pays in income tax on earnings of 15K p.a. I am therefore paying her tax. I am paying her tax so these fucking sponging shits can have a state funded home within walking distance of one of the best and cheapest works canteen in the world.
It was not a pretty sight.
I think he really did not like being taken to task. We almost saw a “don’t you know who I am!!” moment, but he did control himself just.
As to the idea of a dormitory. Apart from the fact that the foundations would have to be made particularly robust in case the shagging got into a harmonic and that a Matron would be needed to patrol the corridors with a cattle prod after lights out to stop any inter-party poodlefaking, it would be an ideal place to put a berme.
Would you want to share a dormitory with a big fat snoring lump like Pickles? Just imagine the smells and continual farting. It’s just too horrible to contemplate.
LABOUR LOSE THE WILL TO LIVE: GOVERNMENT LOSES VOTE ON SKILLS BILL
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LABOUR LOSE THE WILL TO LIVE: GOVERNMENT LOSES VOTE ON SKILLS BILL
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LABOUR LOSE THE WILL TO LIVE: GOVERNMENT LOSES VOTE ON SKILLS BILL
*
Ha, that’s nothing, we used to live in a brown paper bag…………….etc
Eeeee! We dreamed of a paper bag!
You were lucky !
Where is David Cameron? Where is the leadership? Does he want to win the general election? Why does he surround himself with duffers? Why cannot he sack people like Spelman and now this hopelesss chap Pickled?
Why cannot he put together a real fighting team. Redwood. Davis. Clarke.Howard. People who can and will fight their corner well, and win!
He has Maude, Pickled, Osborne,Grayling, and so many other nonentities. Two brains this and that fellow who went missing during the last campaign in Dorset because he opened his mouth and trash came out!
Eton boys together…Get a life Cameron. Wake up. Get Hannan in quickly. Get him a safe seat and ensure you have a top job for him. Minister for Europe? Of course not he does nopt follow your views of an EU love in does he!!
Do you know I reckon you could lose the general election the way you are not doing things.;
I think you have made an error in your user name.
It should end with _Pride.
Hope that helps.
yup – a labour victory is abolutely a possibility – Jesus Wept!
Not at all.
A very good strategy in fact.
Let McBust and all his marxist hoons perish in the firestorm the nosepicker has started. That way the government that follows will survive, thrive and drive a stake through the heart of social fascism.
It is sad that MPs do not appreciate the damage they are doing to their reputations. No other occupation in the UK is allowed the volume of un-taxed expenses that MPs claim. Even the half hearted offer to forgo expenses in exchange for a larger salary digs a deeper hole in their public trust and generates more hatred for them.
A lot of anger could be assuaged by giving up the second homes allowance, treating all other expenses in a normal HMRC manner and recognizing that their salaries outstrip their job specifications. Now Brussels generates over 70% of our laws maybe their pay should reflect the 30% remaining job responsibility.
MPs have a limited window of opportunity to reform themselves. If they do not take advantage of this, the result imposed will be much more severe.
A nephew has explained all. Our gravitationally-challenged Party Chairman either:
(a) has to move very, very slowly for fear of disturbing the orbit of passing Google satellites, or obliterating several StreetViews in a single minute – which adds many hours to his walk to the station; or
(b) is in fact commuting not from Brentford (as we all thought) but from off-planet, since he is a (very poorly disguised) Sontaran.
In fairness, Eric has at least finally and definitively answered that fundamental question about who ate all the pies. So it was not entirely a wasted evening.
But at least Porky Pickles looks like a piggy………………….
I nearly shat myself with laughter when Dimbleby said ” like a job?”, it has to be one of the funniest moments on a political programme for years. What beggers belief is that Pickles honestly thought that if he spelt out that he lives a WHOLE 37 miles from his work, everyone in the studio would go “Oh well in that case, erm yeah you do need a second home”. Completely and utterly out of touch with reality. In a different world, on a different planet. “I’m number two, when you’re number two…….I’ve got to be there on time, ………..if the number two isn’t there………..blah blah.” Fuck me who does he think he is, the only person who works who has to be some place ON TIME? What a self important tosser.
Fuck, I’m number two. Buy me a house, pay for my pies, wipe my arse………I’m number two you know!
Felt sorry for Pickles last night…the faster he dug, the deeper the hole got. On top of that the baying commie QT mob audience screamed ceaseless abuse!
“The creatures outside looked from pig to man, and from man to pig, and from pig to man again; but already it was impossible to say which was which.” [Animal Farm]
Actually, this whole campaign is very unfair to pigs, which are nice animals and never cheat their allowances…
Can you identify Mr Pickles from this line-up?
and pigs are a jolly clever bunch – is this a porcine hate-crime?
No, but a lot of the comments are pig-ignorant
Pigs are jolly clever? How come so many have “joined me for breakfast”.
Thought you worked in commodities old boy? Are you Securities Institute registered, if so under what name?
New Saturday Mail poll to be released shortly.
Conservative 47%
Labour 26%
Liberal Democrats 15%
Conservative lead 21%
I don’t care. 21% lead or not, the fact that even 1% of this country would STILL vote Labour fills me with dread.
Fills YOU with dread? It fills me with astonishment.
I dislike all this talk of pigs. Please stop it.
Don’t read it then
Pickles was weak.
This Guido effort is weaker (and less amusing).
At last I have found a site that has a lot of people who feel the same way as I do and are not afraid of voicing there opinions on the corruption that is going on in the corridors of power.I seem to have been censored on other sites for expressing my true feelings about the corrupt bankers and polititions that have transpired since the Thatcher government deregulated everything in favour of free capitalism.The two main bodies of people suffering through the present system are the working people who managed to save a little and those who had mortgages.No interest on savings and reposessions seems to be the order of the day.Not only should these capitalists be stripped of there illgotten gains they should be stripped of there titles as well.One law for the rich and bollocks to the rest us is what we have at present.The present government has had enough time to put right what the tories did wrong but it seems to me we put the tories back in power when Blair became prime minister,fifth columnist and all that.They all have there snouts in the trough,the same on a bigger scale is also happening in the E.U.Parliament only us as a people can change anything so lets do it.
Go and read Hannan and Carswells book. The Plan, then come back and have another go at a sensible comment.
No wonder Pickles cannot hack the travel, at that monstrous size he probably uses all his energy just moving around. Hit the salad bar, you great fat quivering lump.
£80 gets you a reasonable bike from Halfords. Brentwood to Westminster is 27 miles. Stay in a B&B during the week. Pickles will save money, carbon emissions and he might stop himself dying prematurely.
I am amazed that he claims it would take 4 hours 530 to get to hoc for 930. Does he not realize that the first thing many would do is type the details into a route planner. It actually takes one hour.
It takes one hour to type the details into a route planner?
What a crappy system.
It takes 40 minutes to Liverpool street
The fat hoon
O/T but anyone else noticed how unbelievably pro Lab Ch4 Ch 4 are these days? Must really need that BBC cash.
The news forum there is moderated straight from the arses of Screaming Lawd Butch and Straw.
Julian Lewis (Tory, New Forest East) has been involved in a determined campaign in the local press to justify hiding the details of MPs addresses for ‘security reasons.’We all know it is to hide the homes these troughing piggies have at the tax-payers’expense.
The Tories are really going to have be squeaky clean if they seriously want to win the next election because it was Tory sleaze that contributed largely to these socialist knuts being elected in the first place.
As an aside it can take no more than 2.5 hours to commute from here (approx 90 miles) to Westminster so old Pickles must really struggle moving that ample frame about. Fat knut.
I just love how he’s explaining to everyone that it takes him ages to get to work from home like it’s something unique to MP’s.
Corrupt fuckers, the lot of ‘em.
“OK well I’ll sell it.”
Readers of a certain age may recognise that this is a Pickles Pledge…..
I hope he’s “been”.
If you left a trail of pies from Brentwood to Westminster I’m sure the fecker would be there in considerably less than for hours.
unlike your beloved lord and master?
My ‘beloved lord and master’? To whom do you refer old chap? If, as I suspect, it is none other than that fat ponce Brown you are most wrong. I am merely exercising my right to poke fun at salad-dodgers.
Love this comment, ace
you shattered your “mystique” by becoming visible on telly and condescending to get in that playground fight with Jonny Vegas
A FATAL ERROR
it’s like the wizard of Oz when the curtain is pulled back. Very unedifying
Dear Guido,
since your appearance on the DP I have detected a strange tone in your blogging. Not quite subservience but almost a mild need to justify yourself.
Surely that unwashed, uneducated slime Dolly D, did’nt unnerve you that much did he?
Let’s see the paperwork.
If you nulabour trolls think this site is so crap, why do you feel the need to spend so much time on here? Dickhead.
same reason as pigs love shit
yes pigs rolling around in their own shit is about right when it comes to nulab trolls.
Pigs are actually very clean animals and don’t roll around in shit in the wild.
They should not be compared with Politicians
Nope. Am trying to move on a little from Dolly though.
please don’t go on telly again
it diminishes your power
there are enough draper types wannabe TV presenters out there
Old McAllister cartoon in the Guardian years ago (probably slightly misremembered, but the gist is right).
Two people talking at a party:
“I think its so unfair that Elton John has seven houses when some of us have to make do with only three.”
David Starkey interviewed on Channel 4 News tonight referred to MP’s having their snoughts in the trough fiddling their expenses ! Class .
For pity’s sake, until the Tories can find a proper party chairman don’t let this one anywhere near any kind of broadcasting equipment. Last night’s QT was just the most awful, embarassing spectacle of a senior Tory politician digging his own grave that I have ever seen.
If this is an example of Conservative selection for arguably one of the crucial party jobs then we will be well and truly shafted at the next election.
Poor old Pickles. I feel sorry for him, I mean ” Ok I’ll sell my house then”…..anything…………. I’ll do anything if you all just shut the fuck up and take away this pain, let me melt into this black hole I’ve just created for myself. It was hilarious to begin with but as he crumbled in slow motion as time ticked by tick……………….tock………………tick………………….tock, the guy had realised that even before he had finished speaking and the bad acid trip had come to an end, he was fucked, things were never going to be the same for him again, he’d lost it live on prime time tv and he was now entering a world of shit, humiliation, embarrasment, failure and possible outcast, a broken man.
Still, you gotta laugh it’s not the end of the world ( well, my world anyway )
for a British PM to be lectured in economic prudence by a Latin America is a new low in the sorry limbo dance which is the Brown premiership.
Traalalaa hoho
For a while it looked like Brown was about to go to a country without some comic mishap. But he didn’t let us down. Michelle Bachelet, the Chilean President, noted at her joint press conference with Brown how her government had been able to introduce a significant fiscal stimulus because it had “saved in the good times” – something that Brown conspicuously failed to do.
from the Speccy.
Last week I suggested to a colleague that he get a bank account in Chile and get saving. He’d get a good return on even a standard account compared to the UK. He laughed and said ALL the countries in South America are knackered because it is a “global” problem. I am now proved right and when I see him on Monday I’m going to rub his nose in it.
HaHaHaHa
p.s. I wonder what those NuLabour trolls have to say about El Presidenta Bachelet’s comments? Viva La Peso!!
Can the Chilean government not put Brown under house arrest a la Pinochet?
the Czech guy too (at the EUSSR) gave The Great HelmsPerson short shrift.
So, in NooSpeak, that’s a unanimous approach from the Leaders of the World then
Oh – and did I hear the Beloved say Merv didn’t mean what he said either . . . what he really meant – or said – was . . . blah blah blah . . . but I lost the will to carry on listening to the crap.
Erick Pickles=Pigling Bland
There was a time when I used to get up at 4.30am, travel 600 miles to the office, do a days work, and travel 600 miles to be home by 9pm. No 2nd home for me. Troughing bastards the lot of them.
Dude, admirable work ethic but you need to really reconsider your lifestyle – best wishes.
600 miles to and from work. That sounds suspiciously to me like you were a contractor (probably IT) getting paid £500-1000 per day and taking a commute on an internal UK flight – I know people who have done it.
Well, I’ll tell you – when I was contracting and getting the big money – I would go in to work every day – even if I was half-dead or had the worst flu you’ve ever seen.
These MPs are getting less than me and I’m a scruffy bloke fixing trading systems. Back in the contracting boom I could earn triple what they are earning.
Go figure.
Very unedifying indeed…Guido looked like he had Eric Pickles stuffed under that sweat shirt.
Why the hell did the Tories install that fat twat Pickles as Chairman??? There are plenty of suitable candidates among the ranks, but no, they install this fat hoon. He looks like the proto sleaze era Tory, pompus middle aged pot bellied trougher. Jesus Dave, get a grip for fucks sake!
We have seen two very different faces of the Tory Party this week – the frankly brilliant rising star in the form of Hannan, eloquent, concise, deadly. And then there’s Pickles, incoherent, bewildered, ineffectual.
Wield the axe now Dave, please?
Starkey tonight ;very good and got the whole thing right and the proportions correct
It was sober and slightly sinister stuff from a guy with a good brain and an intellect that has been marinaded in the broad sweep of our national history.
McTwat would not have understood a single word of it…………………
it would be impossible for someone names Eric Pickles to be anything other than a fat wozzer
I bet he can put away the pork pie and clear the bar with a speciality meat & beer fart
Mrs Pickles favourite saying: fucking hell Eric, you have stunk the bog out again!
can actually Pickles wipe his own arse?
Quantitative easing in downing street??
http://jess-the-dog.blogspot.com/2009/03/exclusive-downing-street-refurbishing.html
Hoons.
Even if every MP is claiming £60,000 [1] and given that there are 646 of them at Westminster then the cost to the tax payer is about £39 million per annum. Do you really want your MP to be on a train for 2 hours and 40 minutes every day? I don’t! I wan’t her to be dealing with my fellow constituents concerns.
We can bash Eric Pickles and Fred Goodwin until the cows come home but in doing so we’re missing the point. Blair and Brown have created a bloated public sector riddled with un-sackable people working at so called ‘non jobs’that cost the tax payer £600 million a year [2].
The £39 million figure for MPs second homes is just 0.052% of the £75bn that Gordon is borrowing in order to waste on keeping his gigantic public sector going.
We’re in deep shit people! Ed Pickles’flat is the least of our worries.
[1] http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/7965195.stm
[2] http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-504788/Politically-correct-non-jobs-cost-taxpayer-600million-year.html
[3] http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/2009/mar/19/government-borrowing-financial-crisis
Why should’t they be travelling to and from their work for 2 hours? Many other people on equivalent pay do. And if they want to not do that they can do what others do and stay in a modest hotel for a couple of nights.
Otheriwse, agreed!
You can’t measure the importance of different jobs by comparing the salaries. Many people on £60+k a year may have to travel for two hours but they don’t have the same responsibility to the people as MPs do. There may well be some bad eggs who are just in it for the money, but being an MP should be a service to the people.
I live in Burton-on-Trent and although my MP and I have different political persuasions you can’t fault her on her diligence. She’s answers all the letters I’ve sent her, I met her at parliament and she is always out and about in the community in Burton.
Cameron should move him to the side. Last night was political suicide. The man was a disaster.
I too was embarrassed by Eric Pickles miserable performance on
Question Time and I’m a dedicated Tory.
I do get bored by all the mindless ranting of “they’re all at it!”
by every easily-led media-enslaved muppet here and elsewhere.
They are obviously NOT ‘all at it’because we know for a fact
a great many of them do not claim the second house allowance
despite being able to and run their government affairs as straight
as we would expect. There are plenty of decent MPs in all
parties.
The ones we hear about are the bad guys, obviously. They make
a great headline. How interesting would it be to write “MP handles
allowances with integrity”. Wouldn’t sell many crappy newspapers.
I’m sure its really exciting and amusing to jeer about ‘revolution’.
What we actually need is some perspective. Find every
MP who has misused their allowance and make sure the voters
know who they are so they don’t win a seat next time. Support
and congratulate all the decent ones. That would be balanced
and fair, instead of pointless mouth-frothing.
Seeing thatpicture of porker Pickles, had me thinking of a possible remake of the movie ‘Deliverance’porker Picklesbeing chased through some southern swamp by Hillbillies intent of ‘spit-roasting’the hapless porker
you greedy fat fuck!!
oh maybe it is a duplicate comment
Pissed myself laughing at this article on Pickled Willie’s website:
http://www.ericpickles.com/newsarticle.php?id=1542
Doesn’t use much oil my arse – he’s a fecking tub of it!
He probably WOULD have to get up at 5:30 to be in the office for 9:30… there is breakfast, after all…
The timetable says the journey is 40 mins from Brentwood to Liverpool street.
[...] should also mention Conservative Eric Pickles MP, who recently appeared on Question Time defending claiming expenses to avoid a 37 mile [...]