Oxfordshire County Council leader Keith Mitchell is a busy man, spearheading the deepest County Hall cuts in recent memory. And he is about to get busier.

Mr Mitchell has been invested as a Metropolitan Grand Inspector in London Masonry, and has responsibility for the wellbeing of 95 Lodges.

The controversial leader described it as a “great challenge”.

Let's hope those lodges don’t have libraries.

Not content with witnessing despair and inhumanity on a daily basis, one of the senior workers at Oxford Crown Court has begun adding abject misery to his days off.

The committed football fan, normally seen cheering on some of the Premier League’s best players, has started making trips north of the border to follow Fort William FC – arguably the worst side in Britain.

On Saturday the court stalwart watched the Highland League outfit notch up just their sixth point of the season with a 2-2 draw.

He boasted he has now seen his adopted team gain four of their six points and that last weekend’s crowd included a canine contingent of three dogs.

Fort William remain bottom of the league with a minus 66 goal difference after 18 games.

You know things are bad when political spin takes off its rose-tinted spectacles. Chancellor George Osborne defended the Government’s spending cuts on a visit to the Rolls-Royce factory in Derby this week.

Rebutting claims the cuts were unfair, he said: “Some of the biggest cuts are in David Cameron’s own constituency, so it’s not as if we are favouring areas over others.”

The Chancellor can hardly be accused of over- emphasising the positive in his take on the “we’re all in this together” mantra.

But Mr Osborne hasn’t ditched all the PR tricks – like giving the audience what they want. So he dropped a few strong hints that this month’s budget could include measures to combat rising fuel prices.

That should have gone done well at an engine manufacturer.

Former Oxford West and Abingdon MP Dr Evan Harris bills himself as a campaigner for “human rights and equality” on his Twitter page.

But the Insider is not sure how women voters will take to this tweet: “Almost all the women I spoke to yesterday on International Women’s Day were just off to make pancakes for men.”

In his defence, he also bills himself as a campaigner for “free speech and evidence-based policy”.