It is no secret that Diary was a fan of former communities secretary, big Eric – sorry, Sir Eric Pickles – simply for the endless supply of material he provided.

And while no person – or indeed thing – could replace our knight in comedy armour we were pleased that local government still has a plain-speaking voice of the people in the shape of new Local Government Association (LGA) chair(man) Gary ‘I'm not a piece of furniture' Porter.