Vices are hard to give up — God knows The Insider has been trying to kick his catalogue of dirty habits into touch, without success, for many years.

But as a General Election looms large and the pressure piled upon Dave Cameron, right, continues to mount, where can the Witney MP and Tory Party leader turn now he has given up cigarettes?

Well, apparently, he has found a little solace with Red Bull energy drinks instead.

However, we are not sure what Sir Liam Donaldson, the Government’s chief medical officer, would say about reports he downs four cans of the stuff each day.

As taxpayers, you might want to ask a question or two about the honesty and transparency of Oxfordshire County Council.

At the fag end of last week the lumbering authority announced 500 jobs are being slashed over the next five years, coupled with £90m of ‘efficiency savings’ — cuts to you and I.

Fairly significant, you might have thought? Apparently not.

County Hall has left itself open to charges of burying bad news, the announcement coming as it did hidden deep in the bowels of its website.

This was surprising.

Usually when the county wants to alert the public it will dispatch a press release to every media outlet in the county, post-haste.

But on this occasion, nothing.

It’s a good job that someone is paying attention, isn’t it?

Now you might think we’re having a cynical dig at those tirelessly hard-working people in the County Hall press office. But we’re not. Honest.

Is it us, or is it a strange coincidence that on the same day they forgot to tell the public about swingeing job and potential service cuts, Keith’s little army of wannabe Alistair Campbells dispatched a torrent of press releases on other subjects, including:

* Green light on London Road improvements.

* Have your say on highway improvements.

* And the exceptionally important news of an exhibition at Cogges Manor Farm on the Second World War Dig for Victory campaign?

While ‘Kaiser’ Keith Mitchell refused to speak to the Oxford Mail about his imminent axe-wielding at County Hall, he did find time to splash on a touch of make-up and quickly do his hair for the BBC for a live interview — or at least he tried to.

Technical errors horribly distorted his voice to an almost evil robotic sound.

At least we think it was technical problems.

All that was going through The Insider’s head — and presumably the 500 people he is soon to confine to the dole queue — was him posing as Davros, leader of the Daleks, shouting “exterminate, exterminate, exterminate”.