Eric Pickles caused enough concern in Manchester when environmentalists scratched their heads wondering how a beached whale had arrived in Manchester but lo and behold it was merely Eric being kept wet by the tears of the thousands of workers he has laid off.
But he didn’t stop there is causing their consternation. Despite record levels of recycling in the UK he is still bent on getting councils to return to weekly bin collections playing to the gallery of Womens Institute members in middle England with nothing better to do than fret about rotting chicken carcasses.
With youth centres closing, sure start centres being trashed and thousands of public workers thrown on to the growing dole queues he has managed to find £250 million to ‘help’ councils who wish to do so to return or support weekly bin collections. This is nothing more than displacement posturing to try and save his sorry backside for his utter failure to protect his own department from the harshest of all public sector cuts.
Of course tackling climate change issues is of no concern to the Tories because but it is only the world’s poorest who will suffer from extreme flooding and heat. How many community based services could be saved by that magic £250 million?
Anna Rose
