• SOMEONE at Oxford City Council clearly isn’t a sports fan. The council contacted the Oxford Mail this week to find out if we would be attending this week’s civic reception for London Welsh to mark the start of the new rugby season in the Premiership.

Unfortunately the email made reference to the Reading-based rugby club London Irish instead of the Welsh, who play at the Kassam Stadium.

The Exiles have obviously had such an impact since moving to Oxford that even the local council isn’t too sure who they are.

  • WE were contacted by former Lib Dem city councillor Tony Brett who objected to our claim that the by-election in Carfax was triggered by the resignation of former Labour councillor Anne-Marie Canning.

And Mr Brett is right, to an extent, to claim that when a councillor resigns two electors need to request an election otherwise one won’t be held.

But our point is that those two electors cannot request the election until a councillor resigns.

If The Insider wanted to be particularly pedantic, he could point out that Mr Brett’s campaign to win re-election in Carfax next week has been triggered by the fact that he lost his seat in May, coming fourth behind Labour, the Greens and the Conservatives.

  • JOINED-UP government is a pipe dream at Oxfordshire County Council. The county council is responsible for both highways and education but those two departments don’t always seem to talk to each other. This week someone put up a sign in Becket Street, in Oxford, which made reference to roadworks starting in Septermeber.

The Insider has checked and this month definitely doesn’t exist. Fortunately schools go back in September, which is good timing.

  • WEST Oxfordshire’s Labour Party was very excited by the visit this week of arch-leftie Polly Toynbee.

The columnist at The Guardian visited Chipping Norton and was welcomed by Labour’s PPC for Witney Duncan Enright who seems to have wasted no time in having his picture taken with her.

While these antics will go a long way towards winning over Guardian-reading voters in Oxford, he might have to try a different tactic in the staunchly Tory West Oxfordshire.