Disgraced former MP starts new life – down on the farm

‘Different perspective’

HE was the disgraced politician who became infamous for a drink-fuelled brawl in a House of Commons bar.

But it seems former Falkirk MP Eric Joyce is now living the quieter life – as a chicken farmer in rural Suffolk.

During a radio interview about his new lifestyle, he talked about his 11 chickens, telling how he likes to ‘pick them up and stroke them’.

He admitted moving to the countryside and keeping the birds may have changed him

The set-up is a far cry from his rowdier earlier life, when the former Army major was convicted of four counts of assault and expelled from the Labour Party after he head-butted Tory MP Stuart Andrew and hit two Tory councillors and fellow Labour MP Phil Wilson during a drunken brawl in Strangers’ Bar in the Commons.

Speaking on BBC Radio 4’s Broadcasting House programme about having the chickens, Mr Joyce said: ‘The chickens come around and I like to pick them up and stroke them a little occasionally. Nothing too excessive.’

When asked if – given his ‘problem with humans’ – chickens had changed him, Mr Joyce said: ‘In some ways moving to the countryside gives you a very different perspective on creatures in general, so there may be something in that.’