On rule for them, one rule for us?

Naughty Ed Vaizey, who has very publicly battled to beat his nicotine habit, was recently caught red-handed tossing away his used cigarette butt outside Parliament by an eagle-eyed Oxfordshire resident.

Tut, tut, indeed - but needless to say, the Conservative MP for Wantage, right, escaped a £75 fixed penalty fine.

On a day trip to the capital with her mother, Hannah Revell, from Abingdon, claims to have seen Mr Vaizey flip away the remains of his Marlboro Light, with scant regard to the littering laws.

She said: "We made our way down to the Embankment, we waited on Westminster Bridge at 5.55pm as Big Ben was about to inform us it was 6 o'clock, but who should we see on our way there?

"Ed Vaizey waiting at a bus stop opposite the Houses of Parliament, extinguishing a cigarette and throwing it on to the pavement.

"Had he been in Abingdon, he would have received a fixed-penalty fine.

"Perhaps as he has got away without a fine on this occasion, he would like to donate an equivalent sum to a charity of his choice instead."

Perhaps, indeed. We'll let you know.

Here at the Oxford Mail we are used to the occasional bout of writer's cramp.

So one can sympathise with Andrew Smith, the Labour MP for Oxford East, who in a recent letterbox dispatch claims to have knocked out a staggering 16,016 letters on behalf of his constituents in the past year.

Where does he find the time?

In a week in which local government employees across Oxfordshire were warned about spending excessive time accessing popular social networking sites like Facebook and MySpace, it would appear none have bothered to register as Keith Mitchell's friend.

Bizarrely, the Oxfordshire County Council leader has his own Facebook page.

However, he has just six registered friends - including Paul Sargent and Tia MacGregor (the city council's Tory group), Keith Slater, a former president of the Oxfordshire Chamber of Commerce, and Mick McAndrews, formerly a Labour county councillor.

With friends like that...

Conscientious Peter Tatchell, the Green Party's prospective Parliamentary candidate for Oxford East, is so worried about being forgotten he has taken to writing to news outlets in the area asking them for help in raising his profile. In a polite email to The Insider, in which he introduces himself, he finishes "would you be interested in doing a profile/interview of me in a future issue? Yours with best wishes, Peter".