Eric Pickles believes the civil service is too much like a mixture of a Rolls Royce and a Trabant and should be more like a fleet of Ford Mondeos 'to get us there quick'. In an exclusive interview with Michael Burton, the now longest-serving DCLG secretary of state who survived last month's reshuffle gives his usual outspoken views on SOLACE, council budgets, civil servants, troubled families – and why he admires Hazel Blears.

There were probably scores, hundreds, possibly thousands of councillors and senior council managers who checked the news on the Cabinet reshuffle last month and said: 'I hope Eric has been sent to Northern Ireland.'