Rt Hon Eric Pickles MP

Presenter0:00

Hello, I'm Kirsty Young. Thank you for downloading this podcast of Desert Island Discs from BBC Radio 4. For rights reasons the music choices are shorter than in the radio broadcast.

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For more information about the programme, please visit bbc.co.uk/slash radio four.

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My castaway this week is Secretary of State Eric Pickles. He was the Tory chairman who helped steer his party to coalition government at the last election, and has been the man in charge of communities and local government ever since.

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It could all have turned out so differently. His great grandfather helped found the Independent Labour Party, and as a teenager young Erik was an enthusiastic Communist who devoured Das Kapital.

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Even though his politics have since transformed, he adds an appropriately piquant flavour to a front bench packed with privileged and pompadoured politicians proudly describing himself as fat, Yorkshire, and bald.

Speaker 31:06

Uh

Rt Hon Eric Pickles MP1:06

Yeah.

Presenter1:10

He says, I don't believe there's a career path for politicians. I think there's a length of crazy paving. Quite a lot of it is pure serendipity. So politics is more luck than judgment, do you think?

Rt Hon Eric Pickles MP1:20

I I think so. I mean, clearly you've got to have a gift for it, you've got to have a determination, you've got to have a burning for it. But anybody who writes uh happily on the back of an envelope, guards when they're twenties, city in their early thirties, parliament when they're forties, and uh prime minister when they're fifties are just kidding themselves.

Presenter1:39

How much harder is it being in government than you thought it was going to be?

Rt Hon Eric Pickles MP1:42

I think it was pretty much what I thought it was going to be, but from the first moment you realized life was going to be different. I I volunteered to sort of walk up to the department and said, Oh no, we'll send a car for you and I arrived to a sort of a North Korean moment when the entire staff out was there uh applauding me and I thought this is just a little wacky.

Presenter2:03

Who do you sit next to round the cabinet table?

Rt Hon Eric Pickles MP2:05

Well, I've recently changed positions. Uh I'm I'm now set next to Vince Cable and Justin Greening.

Presenter2:12

How did you get on?

Rt Hon Eric Pickles MP2:13

We just get on like owls on fire. I occasionally top up Vince's glass of water. He occ occasionally proffers me the Minto bowl, and I'm I'm very happy.

Presenter2:22

What a wonderfully harmonious picture you conjure. A double dip recession then, as we know, this huge fiscal hole that has grown under your party's stewardship, horrendous borrowing. We know, as we've heard this week at the dispatch box by your Chancellor,

Presenter2:39

You're not in control of the economy, all you're trying to do is is is steer it.

Rt Hon Eric Pickles MP2:43

I'm not entirely sure that any uh politician, I'm not entirely sure um uh the Emperor Augustus was in charge of the economy. We we don't do it in a sealed container. What's happening in America, uh what's happening on the Eurozone in India and China affects us.

Presenter2:50

Okay, we

Presenter2:59

We will go. Back to politics. But I'm interested to know that behind the politics, when you're not thinking about it and doing it, you love music, you're passionate about music, and you're a birdwatcher.

Rt Hon Eric Pickles MP3:08

What you need in politics is you need something to switch off. I live in Essex now and uh I love the county. I love the marshland, I love its course and uh particularly in the summer you can get out there on a Saturday morning and uh you can be back for sort of nine o'clock and in a couple of hours been utterly absorbed.

Presenter3:25

So that's the purse. Let's have the music then. Tell us what we're going to hear first off this morning at Eck Pickles.

Rt Hon Eric Pickles MP3:30

Well, the first one I'm I'm pretty sure on the Desert Island will be Lots of Stars, and this is from Tosca. It's a bittersweet song.

Presenter3:37

And wh what is it particularly about it that that you like?

Rt Hon Eric Pickles MP3:40

Well, I I like Italian opera. I'm a sucker for a chick flick. So in um in Tosca or Butterfly, a lot behind me on fem me sniffling into my handkerchief, pretending I've got

Presenter3:53

Ah he

Speaker 44:14

Uh

Rt Hon Eric Pickles MP4:14

Uh

Speaker 44:14

Uh

Rt Hon Eric Pickles MP4:21

Yeah.

Presenter4:28

Um my count of eight hours.

Rt Hon Eric Pickles MP4:31

I love it.

Presenter4:44

A Luce van Lestelle from Puccini's Tosca performed there by Jose Carreras and the orchestra of the Royal Opera House conducted by Sir Colin Davis. So Eric Pickles, the recently suspended Tory MP, Nadine Doris, she's had a lot of uh publicity over the past few weeks repeating on the T V show I'm a Celebrity, Get Me Out of Here. She recently accused David Cameron and George Osborne of being two arrogant posh boys, I'm quoting directly there who were out of touch with the nation. That that did strike a chord with a lot of people.

Rt Hon Eric Pickles MP5:10

And I think it uh is wholly inaccurate. I've I've had the privilege of working alongside the Prime Minister and the Chancellor for a very long time. We're clearly from very different backgrounds. But I've always felt that uh David's strength is that he had enormous empathy and was capable of walking in someone else's shoes.

Presenter5:31

Well, people you know, whether they're working or whether they're working in receipt of benefits, but people know that they're being asked to endure cuts in all sorts of public services whilst at the same time they see their shopping bills go up, they see their gas bills go up. It's misery heaped upon misery.

Rt Hon Eric Pickles MP5:46

If we don't take these measures, then the standard of living that people currently enjoy is going to be shattered.

Presenter5:54

Given how much government matters to people right now, it is a time when one would think

Presenter5:59

That people would engage very strongly with their democracy. And the most recent illustration we have that that seems to be the very opposite is in the elected police commissioners. We had a risible turnout. The whole thing was met with a tidal wave of apathy. And it was something indeed that you were heading up and felt very proud about before the vote. You must feel like you've taken a hell of a beating now.

Rt Hon Eric Pickles MP6:19

Now I take a very strong view about politics. You know, some of the things should we make people vote? Should we make it compulsory like Australia?

Rt Hon Eric Pickles MP6:26

My view is if people don't turn out, it's our fault, and actually staying away is also a political message.

Presenter6:33

So, what did you get wrong then when it came to the police commissioners? Why didn't people turn up? What should you have done?

Rt Hon Eric Pickles MP6:37

Well, maybe I should have gone on the I went on the stump quite a bit myself, and maybe I should have gone on the stump a little bit more.

Presenter6:43

I wonder maybe if right now the public felt they'd a hell of a lot more to worry about than police commissioners.

Rt Hon Eric Pickles MP6:48

Well, I think, you know, democracy is a very inconvenient and dreadful thing, and it's a lousy way to run things, but as the Great Churchill said, every other form of government is worse.

Presenter6:59

For those of us watching from the outside, it seems a curious job to choose these days, to say Yeah, I want to be a politician.

Rt Hon Eric Pickles MP7:06

I've seen politicians from all sides of the party, and generally speaking, most of them are motivated because they want to make a difference, they want to be the advocates for their community, they want to right or wrong, they want to do public service and you know we live in a world now sometimes where people sneer about public service and I actually believe public service is a noble thing to do. I'm very proud to be a Member of Parliament.

Presenter7:30

You describe yourself, I said it in the introduction, as fat, Yorkshire, and bald. I wonder if that's a sort of defensive thing. You're just getting a kick in before anybody else does.

Rt Hon Eric Pickles MP7:38

Well, it's uh it's not a bad tactic, I suppose, but I I was quite married over Cromwell and I quite like the warts and all.

Presenter7:45

You're very well turned out. I noticed you came in here that you got braces that have got a beautiful sort of bumblebee, a golden bumblebee sewn into them, and a lovely kerchief that had something of a flourish about it, a poker dot kerchief. You d you take a lot of pride in the way you dress.

Rt Hon Eric Pickles MP7:56

You know, I've I've now become a diamond geezer. I'm very proud to be sixty and uh, you know, there's a certain style that comes with someone on the outer reaches of old age.

Presenter8:06

And what are those little cufflinks you've got on there? They're sort of taxicabs with inner union jack.

Rt Hon Eric Pickles MP8:11

I'm afraid to say that Paul Smith finally been exposed uh as an unintentional follower of fashion.

Presenter8:16

Yes, not swinging cuts for everyone then if we're shopping at Paul Smith.

Rt Hon Eric Pickles MP8:19

Well they're only like thirty quid.

Presenter8:20

Let's have some more music then. What are we going to hear now?

Rt Hon Eric Pickles MP8:23

We are going to hear Miles Davis. I love jazz, and this is just sublime. And the bit we've chosen here is we hear what everyone associates with So What, and then we just hear this wonderful first riff.

Presenter9:07

That was so what by Miles Davis. You conscientiously switched off your phone b before you came in here this morning, Eric Pickles. What y I hear through the grapevine that you like a sort of perky ringtone.

Rt Hon Eric Pickles MP9:16

Yes, I do have So Watt as my ringtone, but I also rather mischievously assign ringtones to other people, and I've got a colleague who is a very solid Eurosceptic, and um whenever he rings me, the Odejoy Beethoven's Odejoy rings out, and it never fails to amuse.

Presenter9:34

Um I mentioned in the introduction that your great-grandfather was one of the founders of the Independent Labour Party. What did you hear about him? What sort of a man was he?

Rt Hon Eric Pickles MP9:41

He's an interesting guy. Um he got disillusioned with labor in the same way that I did, and went off to the West Country to start a chain of cinemas.

Presenter9:50

I don't know

Rt Hon Eric Pickles MP9:50

Which again is one of my great passions. So I kinda regret I never had an opportunity to meet him or to learn more about him.

Presenter9:57

Your father then was a shopkeeper. What what did he sell?

Rt Hon Eric Pickles MP10:00

It was grocery, he worked for the Cooperative Society, and then Uncle Kenny asked if he'd like to come and work for him. So for

Rt Hon Eric Pickles MP10:07

About ten to twenty years, we uh had a shop um in Woodhouse in Keithley.

Presenter10:11

And w did you ever work in the shop on weekends?

Rt Hon Eric Pickles MP10:13

Yes, absolutely. Yes, I can still add up pretty uh good and I could still cut you a quarter a pound of cheese by sight. And your mother, tell me about her, what kind of mum was she? Oh, she her mum was fantastic. She's sadly died very young. It was a kind of a symbiotic relationship between my mum and dad. She gave him a a sense uh of adventure that he otherwise would not have got, and he gave to her a a kind of stability that uh she wouldn't otherwise have had.

Presenter10:40

And you say your mother died when she was very young. How how old were you when she died?

Rt Hon Eric Pickles MP10:44

Happy in my mid twenties. I think just beginning to start my way in the Young Conservative, and one of the sadness is that my mother never saw me even as a counsellor.

Presenter10:54

Tell me about this Labour household then. You said, you know, we all voted Labour, but we didn't talk about politics.

Rt Hon Eric Pickles MP10:58

It was kind of tribal to find a Tory was a novelty, and indeed, after I joined the party I became something of a novelty within my family.

Presenter11:07

Yes, and that's very interesting. What was their response then to you becoming a Tory?

Rt Hon Eric Pickles MP11:12

Just hails of laughter. I thought it was like the most funniest thing possible.

Presenter11:18

Did they think you'd grow out of that?

Rt Hon Eric Pickles MP11:20

Absolutely. Because I did join as a protest. I didn't join out of conviction. I just gradually stayed by a process of conviction.

Presenter11:28

More on that in just a second, because it's fascinating how you came to that point. But for now, we're going to have some more music, Eric Pickles. We're on your third choice of the day. Tell me about this, and tell me why you've chosen it.

Rt Hon Eric Pickles MP11:37

Oh, this goes back this is probably my earliest musical uh memory. I was born in a a terraced house. The uh the sound proofing between the two wasn't that great. And we immediately above us was a guy called Peter Cawthorne, who had a trombone. And he was in a skiffle group.

Rt Hon Eric Pickles MP11:53

And he used to constantly play the Saints Go Marching Inn, and he kept practising it. It irritated my parents, and they kept complaining about it. Eventually, Peter, being a cunning man, decided to invite me as a young kid to sit in the middle of this skiffle group with a washing board and some thimbles. And I can remember going through this. And I've chosen Louis Armstrong because I love Louis Armstrong. I think he's a fantastic musician. And this recording, which is from Prague, is live and it just gives you some of the excitement of sat there in a terraced house in Yorkshire in the 50s.

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Group with

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Down windows sits

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Watching them all marching Now when the Saints go by Jim

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Oh yes, I fall!

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In that um person

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Wind and saints go by Jimmy

Presenter12:59

When the Saints Go Marching In by Louis Armstrong, that was recorded live in Prague, and memories there, Eric Pickles, of you on the washboard with the thymbols on your finger in the neighbour's flat.

Rt Hon Eric Pickles MP13:07

In the neighbour's flat.

Presenter13:08

You were quite a serious child most of the time, quite quite academic.

Rt Hon Eric Pickles MP13:12

Oh yes, I'm very serious, child. Uh I'm I'm ashamed to say. Um the stories about my me reading Des Kapital and uh Trussk's History of the Russian Revolution when I was fourteen are are absolutely true. I I engaged in correspondence with the Russian embassy. Um

Presenter13:30

What did you write to them about?

Rt Hon Eric Pickles MP13:31

I um this should have told me everything. I I w uh I did a project on on Russian agriculture and I asked for some books and they sent me these two tatty pamphlets which they asked for them back after I'd finished.

Presenter13:31

Uh

Presenter13:44

Was there something about it was, if you will, a little bit of a pose? You sort of liked carrying it about, did you? And people being aware that you were reading it?

Rt Hon Eric Pickles MP13:51

No, I don't think I carried them about in the street. I was really intensely interested. I was really interested in the Prague Spring with Dupček and I thought that communism had a real chance at it and it was just so brutally put down by Brezhnev. And there I am, sort of 16 years old. I feel like everything I believe in has been shattered. I thought I'm going to protest. I'm going to do something really outrageous. I'll join the Conservative Party.

Presenter14:21

I don't mean to cast any aspersions on your teenage years, but I'm wondering if a sixteen-year-old boy sort of gets involved in politics and joins the Tory party because it's not happening with the girls.

Rt Hon Eric Pickles MP14:32

Oh, my goodness I've finally been exposed

Rt Hon Eric Pickles MP14:35

You've clearly never joined the young conservatives. No, I haven't yet.

Presenter14:37

No, I haven't yet. You were chairman of the Young Tories. That was in your uh your late twenties.

Rt Hon Eric Pickles MP14:43

Yeah, yeah, nuscle cham, yeah.

Presenter14:44

Yeah, that's that's that's a big role. That's an important role.

Rt Hon Eric Pickles MP14:48

I was chairman nineteen eighty, so it was just straight after Mrs Thatcher won her first term in office. There was a great tradition of encouraging uh the national leadership on, of making sure that they had access to the people at the very top of the party.

Presenter15:06

Moving deeper into the eighties then, of course, this was the time that the big dispute was the miners' dispute, and that the heart of the miners' dispute was in Yorkshire.

Rt Hon Eric Pickles MP15:10

You said

Presenter15:13

Being a Yorkshireman, how did you see it at the time?

Rt Hon Eric Pickles MP15:16

Oh, I I kind of understood that uh that this essentially was about was who runs the country? Is it going to be the National Union of Mine Work? Is it going to be Arthur Scargill? Or is it going to be people we actually put into Parliament? I was um on Bradford Council at the time and uh

Presenter15:32

Yeah, sir.

Rt Hon Eric Pickles MP15:33

Well, a delegation uh came to address the council.

Rt Hon Eric Pickles MP15:37

And Iron Brothers are

Rt Hon Eric Pickles MP15:40

put a contrary view and um that wasn't necessarily the the physically the safest thing I'd I've ever done in my life, but you know, sometimes you've got to speak out.

Presenter15:49

Are you a bruiser, do you think? You're a political bruiser.

Rt Hon Eric Pickles MP15:51

Uh I have been described as so. I've always felt that what I've done politically, and I can be, I think, quite a tough debater it's about the issue. I don't think I've ever become personal, I've never hated my opponents.

Presenter16:05

Let's have some more music, Eric Pickles. We're on your fourth disc of the day. Tell us about this.

Rt Hon Eric Pickles MP16:10

Well this is Stravinsky, it's The Augurs of Spring and we'd had an art lesson about our familiarity with images. I thought it was kind of interesting. And I was doing the homework and this came on. I had this tiny Hong Kong red transistor radio and literally the the transistor was bouncing on the ben and this opened up a whole new kind of world to me.

Presenter16:19

That's all right.

Presenter17:27

The Augurs of Spring from Stravinsky's The Rice of Spring, performed by the London Philharmonic Orchestra, conducted there by Bernard Heitink. So, Eric Pickles, you had really a meteoric rise in local government. You were elected leader of Bradford City Council when you were only 36. That seems like quite a tender age. And you were credited and criticised in equal measure over what became known as the Bradford Revolution. That was when you had to cut a lot of spending. Stood you in good stead for what the government's having to do right now, I imagine. You also have to be.

Presenter17:55

Rather clear-sighted and to a degree ruthless to be able to do that sort of stuff.

Rt Hon Eric Pickles MP18:01

I had the audacity to actually have a plan, and I was rather effective about it. We were in a difficult financial place, the rate increases were just simply getting out of control, people were taking the roofs off buildings to avoid playing. And I just felt a proud place like Bradford needed to be financially viable, it needed to have a a proper future. It was simply about having to deal with a financial crisis.

Presenter18:30

It can't have made you very popular, I imagine. It seems to me you don't care that much about being popular.

Rt Hon Eric Pickles MP18:35

Well, my chums um in labor in Bradford say that children are still frightened at night in their beds that I might come round if they don't go to sleep in time.

Presenter18:43

Well the pickle monster is coming together.

Rt Hon Eric Pickles MP18:44

Something like that. I remember an incident where we had a a big demonstration and um I was burnt in ethigy outside my own office window. And I remember turning to my chief executive and saying, I don't think we're gonna need to focus group that particular albums.

Presenter19:00

You described yourself and your family as being the novelty Tory within the family. I I imagine it became less and less of a novelty as Uncle Eric started cutting services in Bradford.

Rt Hon Eric Pickles MP19:10

Yeah, absolutely. But by which time my parents were voting Conservative and others were. And I think there were.

Presenter19:16

So had you persuaded them?

Rt Hon Eric Pickles MP19:18

Well, I suspect it was more out of formal illoid.

Presenter19:20

What's that?

Rt Hon Eric Pickles MP19:21

We'll we'll vote for ladd, you know.

Presenter19:23

And what about moving out of local government and moving into national politics? Margaret Thatcher had a hand in that.

Rt Hon Eric Pickles MP19:28

Yes, but it's entirely accidental. I have been humming and haaring whether to go for um Parliament or not and um

Rt Hon Eric Pickles MP19:35

I was in Scarborough, one of our spring conferences, and my um arm was gripped vice-like, and I'd look round and it was the Prime Minister, and she literally frog-marched me across the room to the chap who was in charge of candidates and said Mr. Pickles would like an interview to be a Member of Parliament. She would very much like that I did have this interview.

Presenter19:55

There was a very interesting point when you were an MP for Brentwood and Onger. You were elected in 1992. In 2002, this is a moment that people will remember, and it was because Martin Bell was involved in it. He challenged your seat after there were allegations that a local evangelical Christian group had infiltrated the Tory party and was garnering more votes than was really fair.

Presenter20:18

In a situation like that, when you are fighting for your political life, are you fighting for the party, or is it very personal, that sort of survival?

Rt Hon Eric Pickles MP20:26

I was feeling a kind of a bit sorry for myself when he was running and uh wasn't certain what to do and I had a meeting down at

Rt Hon Eric Pickles MP20:33

at Conservative headquarters, and um Amanda Patel gave me the best piece of advice I've ever had. She said, You've got to understand you're on your own.

Rt Hon Eric Pickles MP20:43

You know Brentwood Longer better than we do. We will give you the best advice possible. Ultimately, you have got to take that decision. And you know, it was like a liberation. From that moment, I thought, well, I'm going to sort this fella out. On that note, let's have some music then, Eric Pickles. What are we going to hear next? Well, we're going to hear Reasons by Chris Rear.

Presenter21:03

Why would you Uh

Rt Hon Eric Pickles MP21:04

Uh

Presenter21:04

Yeah.

Rt Hon Eric Pickles MP21:04

I'm in France, I'm in a citron. I am close to the coast among the pine trees on the Cerve. It has been chucking me down, and then suddenly the bright sun breaks through and the pine trees they start to shimmer. There's this wonderful smell of pine, and I am perfectly happy.

Speaker 321:28

My sails are on a sunny day.

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Pretty soon I was on my way

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The what for sure it was I could not say.

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Two thousand reasons.

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Maybe more

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Eight hundred chances on faraway shows

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Searching for something, searching for more.

Presenter21:56

Deep inside me burn.

Presenter22:00

That was reasons by Chris Riet and memories for you, Eric Pickles, of standing among the the pines on the French coast there. It did sound idyllic. Um the public image you have of this bluff, no nonsense northerner is obviously very useful at times, but I just watching you listen to your music today, you look you look to me like quite an emotional man, have you got quite an emotional side?

Rt Hon Eric Pickles MP22:19

Oh God, absolutely.

Rt Hon Eric Pickles MP22:21

I am not cold and calculating by by any strength. But I think it makes me kind of a better person that you're not divorced from reality.

Presenter22:31

You've been married for thirty six years. How did you meet your wife?

Rt Hon Eric Pickles MP22:32

Oh yes.

Rt Hon Eric Pickles MP22:35

Um through the aforementioned young Conservatives.

Rt Hon Eric Pickles MP22:38

You have, you have, yeah. So I so if I went uh if I went into politics, uh not to because I couldn't find um a girlfriend, then I did in the end.

Presenter22:39

I've got it all wrong, yeah.

Presenter22:42

Size

Presenter22:49

So does she is she a political one?

Rt Hon Eric Pickles MP22:50

Well thank God.

Presenter22:52

Right.

Rt Hon Eric Pickles MP22:52

There's nothing more frightening than a political wife, Lady Macbeth, just waiting to get you. I also think he's quite a good um judge in terms of how you are with your colleagues, in terms of how their spouses treat you.

Presenter23:06

Right. You you once said, I have to say, through great sadness, I don't have children. So that's um that wasn't a choice you made then.

Rt Hon Eric Pickles MP23:13

No, no, it wasn't my choice. But uh I'm never uh anybody who ever looks back. I don't I've never walled in self-pity. Just get on with life.

Presenter23:22

Yes, you have a a curiously calm manner. Is there a sort of boiling furnace of fury in there, or do you feel quite sort of calm and at one with the world?

Rt Hon Eric Pickles MP23:32

I am at one with the universe. I mean I'll get angry over a personal injustice. I can get angry on the behalf of constituents. But you should never allow that anger to get in the way of your judgment.

Presenter23:45

And you say that your wife has got very, very good judgment. Do you do you talk to her about big political decisions? Do you say, you know, round the round cabinet table we were discussing this and I wonder what you're

Rt Hon Eric Pickles MP23:55

Never had the temerity to give those kind of views to Mrs. Pickles, as she was far too saintly to be bothered with the sordid business of day-to-day politics.

Presenter24:05

Let's have some more music then, Eric Pickles. Um your sixth disc?

Rt Hon Eric Pickles MP24:09

Well, it's actually very much connected with Irene. Where she used to live, next door was the opera singer John Ronsley, and he was

Rt Hon Eric Pickles MP24:20

appearing in a production of Cozy Fantute. We thought we'd watch it and I thought, wow, this is very cool. I really like this. I suppose if we're um on the desert town, this is from Cozy Fantute, um and I'm kind of hoping for gentle breezes.

Speaker 425:27

Please feel

Speaker 425:33

Oh surprise!

Presenter25:40

Tuarecia Ilvento from Mozart's Cossi Fantuti, performed there by Brigitte Fassbender, Gondula Janovitz and Rolando Panarai, with the Wienar Philharmonica conducted by Karl Baum. Parallels are often drawn, you'll be aware of these of course between yourself and John Prescott, you know, in a way the the public face of a party that sometimes can seem a little bit privileged and and remote. Indeed, you occupy his former office, don't you?

Rt Hon Eric Pickles MP26:06

I I I I do indeed. I was uh rather

Rt Hon Eric Pickles MP26:09

Dreadfully described by David Starkey as a thinking man's John Prescott, and I have a grudging admiration for Old Prezza. He's um he's a formidable opponent.

Presenter26:20

And what about that image then, again, you know, a parallel with him, this sort of rough diamond image that you have? Does that sit easily with you?

Rt Hon Eric Pickles MP26:27

Well, I can't mind.

Rt Hon Eric Pickles MP26:29

that kind of thing,'cause I shamelessly exploited when I was party chairman, I did these war room briefings and I became Uncle Eric. But I would be mortified if I felt that my position depended on anything other than basic talent of of being able to get things done.

Presenter26:46

Now speaking of mortified, there was a moment question time back in 2009. You drew significant criticism from people in the audience, and indeed people beyond, when you began to talk about having this second home because your own home was thirty-seven miles from Westminster and you said, you know, it's very difficult. I have to get up at half past five in the morning and sometimes I'm working very late into the night. And there were incredulous faces in the audience, people who said, well, welcome to My Life Two.

Rt Hon Eric Pickles MP27:10

People who said well

Rt Hon Eric Pickles MP27:11

I feel very foolish because I was actually defending something I had no idea about. I had no idea about the abuses.

Presenter27:20

But I'm interested in your performance on question type at that point. It was disastrous.

Rt Hon Eric Pickles MP27:22

At that point, it was disastrous. It was a car crash, it was dreadful. I mean, the only upside is for the first and only time I got a prolonged hug from David Cameron.

Presenter27:26

Uh

Presenter27:33

The problem, of course, was that it reinforced that idea that people in Westminster live in this.

Presenter27:40

A cossetted bubble where it seems tricky to get up at half five in the morning, and as though you should be given special dispensation for doing so, when in fact the rest of the population is doing it every blinking day of their working life.

Rt Hon Eric Pickles MP27:50

Yeah, I think of a section of of the population that are obviously doing that everyday life, and it was a dreadful performance.

Presenter27:57

When David Cameron put his arms around you and gave you that hug, what did you say to him? Did you apologise?

Rt Hon Eric Pickles MP28:02

Well, yes, of course I apologize, but um he's a good boss. He kind of understands that we all have off days.

Presenter28:11

So this idea of cossetedness and of people at Westminster being out of touch, how does that square with your role in fronting these troubled families initiative that you're doing? This is these we're told one hundred and twenty thousand or so people whose drain on resources is completely disproportionate.

Rt Hon Eric Pickles MP28:25

But also

Rt Hon Eric Pickles MP28:28

And who have been completely abandoned by the system? This is the thing that I am the most enthusiastic about in terms of what we're doing.

Rt Hon Eric Pickles MP28:35

And you know, when we sort of started going around and trying to get different politicians on board, different councillors on board, it was always the councils that got it before the office. And I don't mean that with any disrespect. And I think it was basically because of guilt. We kind of understood that we should have done something about this. I mean, I can think of families in Bradford, and the same families are causing the current politicians in Bradford a problem, and we should have done something about this.

Presenter29:04

Time for some music, Eric Pickles. We're going to hear your seventh disc. What is it?

Rt Hon Eric Pickles MP29:08

This is Mary Chapin Carpenter, of which I get a lot of stick, because I like Mary Chaping Carpenter. I've got every single one of her records, but my staff pull my leg, my friends pull my leg, but I like that she sings about things that can be dark, can be subversive, can be coquettish, and here she is in a very defiant mood, and this is the political life.

Presenter29:34

I took a walk in the rain one day On the wrong side of the trail

Presenter29:40

I stood on the rail till I saw that train just to see how my heart would react.

Presenter29:47

Now some people say you shouldn't tempt fate and for them I cannot disagree But I never learned nothing from playing it safe I say fate should not tempt me I take my chances

Presenter30:04

I don't mind working with that

Presenter30:06

That was Mary Chapin Carpenter and I take my chances. Do you still have ambition? Home Secretary, that'd be a nice job, wouldn't it?

Rt Hon Eric Pickles MP30:13

Speculating about where you may or may not want to go at some future time I think is very career limiting. I have lots of ambition.

Rt Hon Eric Pickles MP30:24

But if I'm being really honest with you, I could put away the politics, walk away without a second glance. I'm very happy at what I am. I'm a very contented person.

Presenter30:34

And that contentment comes from what?

Rt Hon Eric Pickles MP30:37

I I think it comes from an understanding that it was not preordained when I was born in Keithley in nineteen fifty two that I would arrive at this place, and I'm very fortunate and I should use that to the max.

Presenter30:50

Um I'm going to send you away, of course, to this desert island. How how will you cope on your own, Eric Pickles?

Rt Hon Eric Pickles MP30:52

As a tiny

Rt Hon Eric Pickles MP30:54

Uh I am sadly very self-contained. Uh I don't think I don't think I'd have any problem uh being by myself.

Presenter30:57

Yeah.

Presenter31:00

You say sadly very self-contained. What do you think other people mark you down for that, or you mark yourself down?

Rt Hon Eric Pickles MP31:05

I think a bit of both. But I suppose only child, brought up in a shop at a formative time, parents very busy, you had to be kind of self contained.

Presenter31:16

Oh, and on this island would you try to sort of make order where there was none? Are you one of those people?

Rt Hon Eric Pickles MP31:20

I don't think I'd have much of a problem surviving in terms of being able to get a shelter cracking, being able to sort out the fish, look for Robinson Crusoe's goats to ensure they had clothing and food and all that kind of thing.

Presenter31:34

Let's have your rates at a disc then.

Rt Hon Eric Pickles MP31:36

I'm afraid I'm going to have to kind of admit to treason on the air. I like Essex. Essex is my home. I hate going back to Yorkshire. And one of the things that kind of holds me together is the people. I like its kind of in-your-face attitude. But it's a stunningly beautiful county. And I've taken an interest in bird watching over the last 12 years. I just love the marshland and the flatland and that point by the shore. And often I'll get up very early on a Saturday and go out there and look for waders, look for red shank, and for oyster catchers and for plover. And this is from Peter Grimes, it's the first sea interlude. And if you could kind of imagine, very early on, mist on the water and the sun just about to break through.

Presenter33:16

The first interlude from Benjamin Britton's Peter Grimes, performed there by the Orchestra of the Royal Opera House and conducted by Sir Colin Davis. It's time for the books, Eric Pickles, and the Bible, the complete works of Shakspere, and your book will be what?

Rt Hon Eric Pickles MP33:29

This was really hard because I read an awful lot and uh but it was recently I received this book, Primo Levis, Great Books on the Holocaust, If This Is a Man and The Truth is in Everyman edition. But the reason I want this particular copy is it's signed by Holocaust Survivors and it was a gift to me that I know I will have for the rest of my life.

Presenter33:47

The sound.

Presenter33:51

Right. You shall take that as your book, then, and a luxury.

Rt Hon Eric Pickles MP33:54

I'm kind of hoping there's lemons on the island. And I would like a proper kettle, I would like a tea service, and I would like a reasonably sized container of Earl Grey tea, and I will sip that as the sun goes down.

Presenter34:10

Right, I think tea is fine. I thought you were going to say a gylantonic or something there for the lemons. Yes, tea is yours. And a disc to save. Which one would you save from the waves?

Rt Hon Eric Pickles MP34:14

Yeah.

Rt Hon Eric Pickles MP34:18

I'll go for the uh bittersweet from uh song from Tosca.

Presenter34:23

Nice.

Presenter34:25

Eric Pickles, thank you very much for letting us hear your desert island discs.

Rt Hon Eric Pickles MP34:28

Thank you.

Presenter34:48

You've been listening to a download from the BBC. You'll find more information on the Radio 4 website: bbc.co.uk slash Radio4.