A top Tory complained he had an “extremely busy day” while being questioned over the Grenfell Tower fire - then got the death toll wrong.
Eric Pickles made the extraordinary double gaffe while giving evidence at the public inquiry into the west London disaster that killed 72 people in June 2017.
Lord Pickles, who led a crackdown on “red tape” while in charge of the housing department from 2010 to 2015, admitted ministers should have acted more on warnings before the blaze during two days of questioning.
But on his second day he snapped to lead counsel to the inquiry Richard Millett QC: "By all means sir, feel free to ask me as many questions as you like.
“But could I respectfully remind you that you did promise that we would be away this morning and I have changed my schedules to fit this in.
"I do have an extremely busy day meeting people.
"But this is more important than anything - but I would urge you to use your time wisely."
Lord Pickles later apologised for “any way I seemed discourteous”, adding: “As soon as I left the room I took the decision to cancel everything.
“This is more important than anything I’m doing and I apologise… I fully understand that you’re doing a proper job.”
But at the end of his evidence, he tripped up separately - appearing to mistake the death toll for that of Hillsborough, which until recently was 96.
The toll from the 1989 football ground disaster rose to 97 last year after a coroner’s ruling on the death of fan Andrew Devine.
Lord Pickles referred to coroner's recommendations after the 2006 Lakanal House fire in south London, which killed six people and injured 20 more.
The first report from the Grenfell Inquiry found lessons from Lakanal fire had not been learned by the time of the Grenfell disaster eight years later.
He said: “It comes down to Michelle (Udoaka who died in the Lakanal blaze) and to the nameless 96 people who were killed in the Grenfell fire.
"It's them who we should think about when we're arguing the toss.
"Ultimately, as I've said earlier, the dead deserve the dignity of being remembered by name and the dead deserve the dignity of a solution.”
Lord Pickles was also chairman of the Conservative Party from 2009 to 2010.
He made the mistake at the end of his evidence while answering if there was anything he would have done differently.
After Lakanal, he said, “maybe I should have put in the letter the simple sentence 'and I accept the coroner's recommendations' - would that have changed things?”.
But he added: “I don't think it would have made any difference whatsoever.
"There was a kind of mindset that existed in parts of the department that just simply ignored what was happening, made a view about what we were and came to it."
Asked if the department should have “done more” to take on the lessons from Lakanal he replied: “Oh, definitely”.
He added it was a personal failing on his part, “on the basis that I’m responsible for everything. The fact that I didn’t know about it, that no one briefed me… is no reasonable excuse, because ultimately it is always my fault.”
But he also slammed firms that used flammable cladding, saying: “The conditions existed that there were people putting things in, into panels and the like, that were combustible.
“The idea to me is: how would anybody ever want to do that? How would they ever think it was a good idea?”
