SOMETIMES The Insider feels like he’s running in circles trying to get to the bottom of a controversial story.

When David Cameron announced GPs would have to start working seven days a week, we asked one of his local GP surgeries in Chipping Norton what they thought.

“You’ll have to ask the clinical commissioning group for a comment on that,” we were told.

So we went to the clinical commissioning group.

“You’ll have to ask NHS England for a comment on that,” they said.

So we did.

“If you want to know what GPs think, you’ll have to ask them,” they said.

It’s enough to make you feel unwanted.

OXFORD City Council seems to have perfected the art of public relations – at least if that is interpreted as winding people up.

Members of the public who visited this week’s full meeting of the city council to ask questions were left wondering why they were asked to attend in the first place.

That’s because they were instructed to read out their question – which had already been submitted and circulated to everyone in the chamber – and were then not even given the courtesy of an answer.

Council chief executive Peter Sloman told one peeved member of the public that they wouldn’t be given a verbal answer by any of the 48 councillors present because they had previously been given a written answer and he told another that they could not expand on the points raised in their written question.

It’s good to know that Mr Sloman appreciates the fact that these people travel to Town Hall of an evening in their free time to take part in the democratic process.

THE world of PR can often be accused of a lifestyle of long lunches, schmoozing and extravagant events.

And sometimes, those in the industry do not help to eradicate that impression.

One firm sent through a release yesterday saying hello and hoping The Insider had a “great weekend”.

Given it was halfway through the working week, such pleasantries had long since been discussed and discarded here.

The Insider hopes the firm was just being extra nice, and hadn’t enjoyed an enviable four-day weekend while the rest of us were toiling away.