THE secret to running a country well, The Insider supposes, is good planning.

But there appears to have been very little of that surrounding Monday’s announcement of £108m of funding for infrastructure projects in Oxfordshire this week.

After initially flagging up the good news in the expectation of some glowing publicity, few of the people involved seemed to know anything about the announcement, and the Cabinet Office wasn’t able to confirm Oxfordshire’s allocation until gone 7pm on Friday.

To compound this, the Secretary of State for Defence Philip Hammond decided to make a visit to Harwell Campus at short notice – leaving Oxfordshire’s Local Enterprise Partnership to arrange an event for him to attend at the last minute.

Good to know the corridors of power remain as chaotic as ever.

SPEAKING of this week’s funding announcement, when the news broke county council leader Ian Hudspeth seemed to be uncontactable.

On further investigation it transpired that he was to be found on a boat in Henley with the cabinet member for transport David Nimmo Smith.

Oxford Mail:

To prove what larks Mr Hudspeth was having, he took this atrocious selfie, above.

Well The Insider thinks he looks all at sea.

SOME people might think that David Cameron does well to balance his job as MP for Witney and Prime Minister.

But that’s not without a few shortcuts here and there it would seem.

This week one of The Insider’s colleagues asked him to comment on the issue of ambulance response times in his constituency.

Oxford Mail:

  • David Cameron

On further inspection it transpired that this was the same comment that he had emailed to us when we did a similar story a few months ago. When we checked, Mr Cameron’s office said they were happy to reissue the same statement.

At least it allowed him to do more important things, like think up terrible jokes for Prime Minister’s Questions.