ONE of Billy Connolly’s oldest jokes is: “How does a man who drives a snow plough get to his work?”

It’s a fair point and, reading a report into the problems during the December snow in the north of the county, you have to wonder when Cherwell District Council might be taking its comedy show on tour.

You can read more details, right, but the report reveals a catalogue of problems, starting on the council’s own doorsteps.

Workers couldn’t get in to one depot because the padlock was frozen, and when they did couldn’t clear the snow to get vehicles out. And at the main council HQ a traffic jam was caused because again it could not cleared of snow. A Land Rover attempting the task was damaged by the speed humps.

You almost couldn’t make this up.

The words of district councillor George Reynolds hardly inspire confidence when he tries to excuse things on the basis that it was very heavy snow falling just before the Christmas holidays.

But this is Britain. Christmas happens during winter. In Britain it snows during winter. No council should be claiming it was caught unawares.

We accept snowfall such as December’s will cause problems.

But if officials do not have a contingency plan to properly deal with such weather during such holidays then that is laughable.