Eric Pickles

Eric Jack Pickles MBE PC, (born 20 April 1952) is a British Conservative Party politician is the Member of Parliament for Brentwood and Ongar since 1992 and is current Lord Chancellor of Great Britain and Justice Secretary. He was previously the Chairman of the Conservative Party from 2001 to 2003 and is currently the chairman of Conservative Friends of Israel.

Pickles is a self-confessed Goveist and is one of the Prime Ministers closest allies in Cabinet.

Pickles was first elected to Bradford Council in 1979, representing the Worth Valley ward. From 1982 to 1984, he chaired that Council's Social Services Committee, and then, from 1984 to 1986, he chaired the Education Committee. Between 1988 and 1990, he served as leader of the Conservative group on the council. In September 1988 the Conservative Party gained control by using the Conservative mayor's casting vote to become the only inner-city council to be controlled by the Conservatives.

When Bradford Council was hung, Pickles opted to break the agreement that the position of Lord Mayor is rotated between the parties, when he put a Conservative mayor in place again. This effectively gave the Conservatives a majority due to the Lord Mayor's casting vote. To do this, they also broke the tradition that the Lord Mayor kept the status quo.

Whilst at Bradford, Pickles announced a five-year plan to cut the council's budget by £50m, reduce the workforce by a third, privatise services and undertake council departmental restructures, many of which proved controversial. A book, The Pickles Papers, by Tony Grogan, was written about this period in Pickles' life.

Pickles is a self-proclaimed flag enthusiast and has taken a personal interest in ensuring that English county flags be regularly flown from the Department for Communities and Local Government. He has urged people to fly the St George Cross of England more widely for St. George's Day and encouraged public bodies to adopt a commonsense approach to flying the flag. On 14 May 2004, at the Flag Institute spring meeting, Pickles announced a consultation aimed at "Making it easier for people to celebrate an identity or an organisation that means something to them".