As he sits with his Bob the Builder Advent Calender, the Right Honourable Eric Pickles, MP, Local Government Secretary, fantasises about the treats to come.
The Tories do not call him the "Big Man" without reason. He is big, very big. As he ponders the choccie treats concealed in the Yuletide Calender, the Big Man salivates. His excitement is barely controlled as he thinks further into the New Year amid thoughts of wielding his axe.
But let's hear from an alleged conversation the Big Man himself had about his early days and why he reckons cuts in services won't do any harm.
"When I were a kid in Yorkshire" he said, "everyone were poor. No one had two happence to rub together. Me da went out every night and collected coal from't railways so we wouldn't freeze t'death. Me ma made soup every day from any old vegetables and'tother stuff. All our clothes were passed on from kid to kid, then we gave them to even poorer kids next door. We 'ad nowt. So 'aving nowt I knows all about a tough childthood. We lived 'thout council services and time 'as come to cut our cloth, agin'."
Now bugger off and let me pig out on me Bob the Builder goodies!
