Eric Pickles MP: Our troubled families programme is turning round thousands of lives

Eric Pickles MP is the Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government. Follow him on Twitter here.

New figures released this week have shown what a significant difference the Government's troubled families programme is making in England. 14,000 families have been turned round so far, which means their kids are back in school for three terms or more; levels of crime and anti-social behaviour have been cut by two thirds, and in some cases one of the adults is off welfare and has got a job – perhaps the first job in the family for generations.

The scheme is working because for the first time troubled families are being shown a bit of tough love. For too long the system allowed them to be cuddled into the system, giving the most vulnerable no obvious exit from the cycle of despair. This was not only damaging to one generation but to the future generations growing up in households without role models, rules or any idea of routine or structure.

As the success of our scheme is showing, the majority of these families want to get their lives back on track, and have embraced the practical help offered with open arms. It may not appear revolutionary at first but this approach represents a radically different way of working with troubled families, many of which have been struggling for years – sometimes decades. Instead of multiple agencies dealing with a parent's mental health problems or unemployment, police sorting out an older kid's drunken bad behaviour and a social worker with the younger child’s trouble at school, the whole family gets help to sort out problems together.

Eric Pickles MP: The Thatcher Years began for me with feelings of disappointment and regret

Conservative Party Chairman Eric Pickles recollects an election night which saw him elected to Bradford council, but disappointment at the narrow defeat of the Conservative candidate in Keighley.

The Thatcher years started for me with feelings of sadness, disappointment and regret. The stinging disappointment came from our failure to take the Labour seat of Keighley by 78 votes. With that kind of margin you can pinpoint individual failures in every polling district.

I had volunteered to act as aide our candidate, John Dawson, a man who I liked and admired, and I threw myself into the campaign. The sitting Labour MP was the late Bob Cryer, well on the left of his party, and an important scalp. The election coincided with the council elections and I stood as a candidate. I spent more time on the constituency activity than in my ward.

After our return from the parliamentary count, I was told that a check of the votes during the separation of the ballot papers indication that I had personally lost. Regretting that I had not done more in my own interest, I turned up for the council declaration and found, on the first count, that I had lost by a small margin. We had a bundle check and I won by a lot - an experience that taught me to be vigilant and unremitting at counts.

It was only later in the day that the enormity of the Thatcher victory finally seeped into my consciousness. At the next general election Keighley became Conservative and remained so until 1997.

Lord Hurd provided his recollection of the 1979 election earlier today, and others will follow during the course of the day.