Communities Secretary, Eric Pickles, has died aged 59 having gobbled his way through the Saffron Tandoori’s entire menu.

Consuming 14 curries along with 17 Lamb specialities dishes, all washed down with 12 bottles of lager, the gorged and bloated MP for Brentwood was persuaded by a waiter to end his meal with a wafer thin mint.

Initially triggering sever indigestion this mint acted as a catalyst, instigating a chain reaction which resulted in the rotund MP exploding; fellow diners were showered by a mass of subcutaneous fat. Despite his chest being blasted apart the Communities Secretary only expired following receipt of the bill. It transpired that being unable to claim the £4577 bill through ministerial expenses caused his heart to fail.

“With great sadness I have to come to terms that a friend and colleague is no longer with us” David Cameron told a packed commons chamber earlier today “Eric Pickles died the way he would have wanted, stimulating the UK economy through selfless greed and gluttony ”.

Paying tribute Ed Miliband agreed with the Prime Minister, “Eric was a great parliamentarian with a great appetite but you didn’t want to be in an enclosed space when he’d had a good curry”.

This refers to the “Great stink of 2008” when the Palace of Westminster had to be evacuated following the then Conservative Chairman having a particularly pungent pasanda.

In 2008 Pickles was also asked to pay back £300 following the MP’s expenses scandal, claiming for ’Forty two phaals, equal nan breads along with ninety popadoms and chuckneys’; what he later described as a ‘light snack’.

Eric Pickles leaves behind a wife and two sheep, Bhuna and Balti.