OXFORDSHIRE County Council’s “cabinet advisory group” on income generation will stop at nothing to raise cash to plug the council’s funding black hole.

And veteran councillor Charles Mathew has come up with a fittingly wacky idea to bring in a few quid.

When it was noted at Tuesday’s meeting that one of our Oxford Mail colleagues had been recorded on a previous set of minutes as an “observer”, Mr Mathew suggested that observers be charged for attending council meetings.

We’re pretty sure he was joking.

Continuing the humorous theme, chairman Arash Fatemian said the council should recover all costs related to answering Freedom of Information requests. There’s open government for you.

 

AFTER calling for the replacement of the Lord Mayor’s car with a new eco-friendly Mini, Dee Sinclair has chosen to invest her own money.
However, the £4 model version of the iconic car produced in Oxford bought by our civic leader at the new Mini’s launch party is hardly going to ferry her and her entourage around the city.
As far as we know, Dee’s hint that a Mini should be donated to the council by the plant in Cowley has gone unnoticed. Or ignored.
It looks like Lord Mayors will have to stick to their ever-so-efficient but ever-so-not-locally-made Japanese Prius for now.

ONCE again independent-minded Labour councillor Mary Clarkson has shared her experience of a life of religion in response to current affairs.
As newspapers across the UK follow the story of former Co-op bank boss and ex-Methodist minister Paul Flowers, Catholic Mrs Clarkson took to twitter to compare the situation to her Methodist upbringing.
She said: “How Methodism has changed! Growing up as a daughter of the Manse, the closest I came to drugs was the huge tea urn at the Women’s Fellowship.”
We’re glad to hear Mary is squeaky clean. Long may she continue to represent her faith in a party which doesn’t always support her views.