11:38am Tuesday 26th February 2008
By Jim Greenhalf
Wasn't it good to see Eric Jack Pickles back on his old stamping ground the other day?
The former Young Conservative Chairman, Worth Valley Tory councillor and Race Relations Advisory Group guru, now Shadow Cabinet Minister for Communities and Local Government (political titles get
longer in proportion to the unlikelihood of the title-holder ever having real power) was the most hated politician of his day between 1988-90.
"I'll cut your bloody throat Pickles," one irate voter screamed at him from the public gallery abvove the council chamber 20 years ago.
EJP was leader of Bradford Council for two years, thanks to two Labour Group defections and the second and casting vote of two Tory Lord Mayors. He issued a document called The Bradford Revolution, a
blueprint for closing old people's homes, privatising school catering and much else. It was a Thatcherite's dream. And it was mostly a sham.
EP - the Extra Political - was desperate to advance his career by getting a seat in Parliament. The huge public hullabaloo that he artfully generated in Bradford with his bogus Bradford Revolution
was duly rewarded. A year or two later he got himself elected MP for Brentford.
I always thought that he was one of the most interesting of a group of officers and politicians at City Hall who had flair and character.
Those days have gone. They died forever when the Labour Group jealously knifed John Ryan in the back in 1998 and heralded a decade of conformity. Ryan, of course, had wanted to introduce the idea of
an elected mayor - something that Dave Boy Cameron recently espoused on his trip to Bradford.
There are exceptions, still, thank God - Lib-Dem councillor David Ward, for example, retiring Tory Stanley King. But in the main the elected inhabitants of Chateau Despair - City Hall - are a boring
lot.
Compared to them Eric Pickles shines like the brassiest ornament in The Agrah restaurant. Yes, Mr Pickles had a strong weakness for a regular Ruby Murray.
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