THE Insider has spent much time in recent weeks trooping around Oxford with students and sixth-formers protesting against rises in tuition fees.

Demonstrations are all well and good but please, guys, can you put a bit more effort into your placards and slogans?

Most are so profane, photographs of them cannot be published in a family newspaper like the Oxford Mail.

And it is hardly a sign of the brightest young minds to bray slogans suggesting the ways our leading politicians might entertain themselves in private. The Insider is unimpressed, please try harder.

You can email any improved slogans to the address above. There is no prize for the winner.

Press offices get a bad rap. All too often they are portrayed as the spin doctors cynically and methodically manipulating events and the way they are presented to the great unwashed.

Thankfully, no such accusation can be levelled at Oxfordshire County Council’s communications team.

When student protesters stormed County Hall this week, the Oxford Mail put a call in to find out what was going on, and what the carefully crafted “media line” would be.

But as a couple of protesters danced a jig on top of their office, the press team admitted it was news to them.

After investigating, they confirmed there had been a “minor disturbance”.

Witney MP and Prime Minister David Cameron is a celebrated orator – famously addressing the Conservative Party conference without any notes when bidding for the leadership.

But his confident delivery faltered last week as he was being broadcast live to the nation.

The PM was waxing lyrical about the Government’s plans for a well-being survey (Cameron and Clegg were pegged as “Morecambe and Wise” after that appearance on the Downing Street lawn in May and now it appears Dave really does want to bring us sunshine) when the airwaves unexpectedly fell silent.

Dead air was then filled by the sound of shuffling and a mumbled “the cards are out of order, it does happen” before our PM regained his composure and launched back into his spiel.

Let’s hope he doesn’t forget his lines in Zurich today.

Before jetting off to Switzerland to support England’s World Cup bid, Mr Cameron had a home fixture to fulfil.

He was in Witney last Friday night to switch on the Christmas lights.

But the Oxford Mail was nearly prevented from taking pictures of the town’s MP pushing the festive button.

Why? Because according to Witney Town Council only the PM’s official photographer was allowed to take photos... of a major public event, attended by thousands of people, in the centre of town.

There was no word of this from Cameron’s office.

Photographer Mark Hemsworth made sure we still got shots of the top-secret ceremony, above. Check them out at oxfordmail.co.uk... and on WikiLeaks soon.