Sir Eric Pickles may be gone, but he is not forgotten. Each year, his spirit lives on as the TaxPayers' Alliance's so-called ‘rich list', battering council chiefs for taking a salary for their work.

As with past rich lists, the figures are a couple of years out-of-date, and a cobbled together mix of salaries, pay-offs and pension pots in an effort to bump up the final figures. But in the run-up to the Spending Review, they give a good headline to the red-tops.