Bets are being taken on how much longer the painful and long-running feud between heavyweight county councillors John Howell and Zoe Patrick will last.

The pair must have writers' cramp, having penned all those vitriolic letters to the Oxford Mail, trying to cast aspersions on the relative merits of the Conservatives and Liberal Democrats.

But the flirting has got to stop.

Especially as this week's offering from Tory councillor Mr Howell read: "Sadly for county councillor Zoe Patrick, there is nothing wrong with my maths or my English, which is more than can be said for her logic and her memory."

Remind me, which party's leader was it who promised an end to Punch and Judy politics?

It's typical, isn't it, you wait two years for an election - and then they all come at once.

The Insider has learned that just a fortnight after disappointing results in the Oxford City Council elections, Labour faces more misery at the polls if Rick Muir, one of its brightest stars, decides to leave the council.

Hinksey Park ward councillor Mr Muir, a researcher at the Institute for Public Policy Research, is agonising over whether to throw in the civic towel in order to concentrate on work commitments.

If he does pack it in, he would become the sixth Labour city councillor to resign his seat this year.

A drought of a different kind at County Hall this week.

Councillors were left twiddling their thumbs waiting for Colin Lamont, the Tory chairman of the inspirationally-titled domestic water use scrutiny review committee, who pitched up two hours late for a important meeting.

And when he did finally breeze in, he told the waiting throng he had pencilled the wrong date in his diary.

So Keith Mitchell, the Tory county council leader once dubbed 'Kaiser Keith' by his Labour counterpart Liz Brighouse, has upped the ante with the districts in backing an all-embracing unitary council for Oxfordshire.

Earlier this year, his Conservative group was likened to an occupying force in Oxford, because the party does not have a single councillor in the city.

So, in the unlikely event an Oxfordshire unitary authority does come to pass, the monicker 'Kaiser' will become even more appropriate, in an imperial kind of way.

Scotsman David Robertson, the deputy leader of Oxfordshire County Council, allowed himself a wee double dram after his favourite football team, Heart of Midlothian, won an unlikely place in next season's Champions' League - and followed up with victory in the Scottish FA Cup final to boot.

However, we suspect he might also need a drop of the good stuff when Hearts come to play in Europe's premier club competition for the first time - and not worry himself about booking too much holiday to follow their fortunes.