Leading Tory council chief: shadow cabinet “haven’t run a piss-up in a brewery”

Stephen Greenhalgh is the leader of Hammersmith and Fulham Council and was appointed to head the Conservative councils’ innovation unit by David Cameron and Eric Pickles. Hang on a minute, what’s that sound? It’s the noise of a pencil drawing a line through a name on CCHQ’s Christmas card list:

“My mates are all in the shadow Cabinet, waiting to get those [ministerial] boxes, being terribly excited. I went to university with them, they haven’t run a piss-up in a brewery. They’re going to get a department of state, in one case running the finances of the nation.” – Stephen Greenhalgh

Soundbites like this are presumably not what Greenhalgh had in mind when he told ConservativeHome that Tories “need to find the right language, establish Conservative values and develop a new Conservative lexicon”.

Cameron, Osborne et al may not have run a brewery. But our local government hero may not find himself running their local government innovation unit in a few months. But Scrapbook can’t help but feel a bit sorry for Cllr Greenhalgh and his off-the-cuff remarks.

After all, it’s not like an event organised by a well known public sector magazine will have any journalists there(!)

UPDATE: More at The Telegraph, Finanical Times and LabourList.