Political campaigning is a cloak and dagger sport, but a Labour city councillor shed a little light on it this week.

Councillor Oscar Van Nooijen revealed the party’s stance on controversial controlled parking zones (CPZs).

In an email he said: “The line is that Labour supports CPZs where people want them, and we oppose them when they don’t.”

Simple really. Nothing like clear leadership.

But that doesn’t really help them in East Oxford where the county council’s proposals to bring in £50 permits have split the community down the middle.

County council cabinet member for transport Rodney Rose will decide whether to go ahead with the zones today.

During a protest at County Hall on Tuesday about the proposed parking zones, county councillor Ian Hudspeth was pursued by a placard-waving hairdresser from East Oxford.

At one point he urged the politician to come down to his salon. But given Mr Hudspeth’s hair situation, right, it can hardly be construed as a bribe.

Archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams announced last week he was stepping down and county council leader Keith Mitchell was among those to pay a tribute, of sorts.

Or was it ecclesiastical name-dropping?

On his blog, the Conservative posted under the heading “Hairy leftie to stand down”.

He added: “I was invited to dinner at the Bishop of Oxford’s house last year and found myself seated next to Rowan Williams for the evening. I always treat such events as Chatham House, with a clear understanding that conversations will remain private, but I was left in no doubt that his politics were well towards the left. Indeed, as a Conservative seated at this North Oxford table, I was a pretty solitary figure.”

I wonder if Dr Williams will be as gushing when Mr Mitchell steps down as council leader next month.

Overpaid, over-hyped sports stars take note. If you want to know how to conduct yourself with humility, decency and humour, even when surrounded by a bunch of slavering hacks, look no further than Jonathan Edwards CBE.

The former Olympic and world triple jump champion, whose 1995 world record still stands, piled on to a tour bus taking regional journalists around the Olympic Park in London this week.

He was there in his role as an Olympic ambassador and could have been forgiven for adopting a slightly haughty pose with a press pack which resembled the Ant Hill Mob from Dick Dastardly.

Instead he grabbed the bus microphone and jovially regaled the assembled journalists with facts and anecdotes throughout the tour.

When told that the Oxford Mail’s Ed Mezzetti was hoping to grab a few words about the prospects of our own triple jumper Nathan Douglas, Edwards got up, walked to the back of the bus and joined Ed for an interview that lasted from Stratford to Canary Wharf.

A great sportsman. An even greater man.