My report last week about the creation of a new 'job' in Oxfordshire County Council's decision-making cabinet, called 'member for place', seems to have touched a nerve.

No sooner had we reported as such than the holder of the post, veteran councillor Melinda Tilley, was in touch in a bid to persuade us the job was not a wind-up.

She said: "The title has attracted some light-hearted banter and some dreadful puns, but the title - short and to the point - covers all issues included in the portfolio."

But we struggle to see how.

Her role includes community planning, building partnerships with town and parish councils and addressing declining rural facilities.

So, surely the title should be "cabinet member for all-the-things-no-one-else-wanted-to-do?"

If there is one person you would have thought was least likely to be touched by the scourge of inner-city knife crime it is Keith Mitchell.

But local government is full of surprises.

And so it was this week when the leader of Oxfordshire County Council, who represents the not exactly inner-city area of Bloxham, decided to wax lyrical about the subject.

He suggests all youngsters caught in possession of a knife should be locked up.

But then he calls for restraint in tarring all young people with the same brush.

Mr Mitchell said: "The opposition has called for anyone found carrying a knife to go to prison -and this is something that I agree with.

"The one thing we should not do is get carried away and believe every youngster walking our streets is carrying a knife and intent on causing mayhem. It just isn't true.

"We should not try to underestimate the scale of this national problem in any way.

"Yes, we must work very hard to clamp down mercilessly on the undoubted problem of knife crime in Britain but let's also work hard to make sure we don't allow the current news coverage to build an all-encompassing shroud of negativity and suspicion around all of our young people."

What is it with the current fashion for flying flags - whatever the occasion - atop council buildings?

Last week, the city council felt the need to fly a rainbow flag because Oxford hosted a small-scale gay pride event.

On Friday we learn, a South African flag will be flown from the Town Hall because that country's former president Nelson Mandela is 90 years old.

And there we were thinking standards should be flown for important and significant occasions only?

At this rate we'll be seeing a plethora of different flags fluttering every single day, because of some politically-correct fear of ostracising people who want their event/birthday/group recognised.

The wheels of local government turn slowly, painfully slowly at times. Today, as they will tomorrow, many hundreds of the county's local government employees stopped work for the day in a national strike over pay.

As a result of the strike, the wheels almost ground to a halt.