Something touched a nerve last week after The Insider suggested more houses should be built to solve the current shortage of homes. Hardly rocket science, that theory.

But according to Keith Mitchell, the leader of Oxfordshire County Council, that's not the solution. In a typically curt letter he said: "There are around 22m homes in the country. The number of new homes built each is a very small fraction of that number.Gordon Brown's desire to increase the annual rate of building in the country from 200,000 per annum to 240,000 per annum will not change the price of a single home in the country by more than a pound or two."

This week, the Social Market Foundation thinktank suggested ripping up parts of the Green Belt for new housing estates. This could mean families in Oxford, currently priced out of the market, could at last have a roof over their head. Just don't tell Keith.

Excitement almost reached fever pitch on Wednesday, when word got out that another Liberal Democrat had left the ranks, this time to join the Greens. Alas, the rumour was untrue. However, any spurious allegations about defections from John Goddard's ruling (albeit minority) Lib Dem group have to be taken seriously - after all, four have quit since his group took control of the Town Hall two years ago. Clearly his councillors are taking the group's motto People Come First too much to heart.

Embattled Conservative Party leader David Cameron has decided to take a break and escape to the South of France for a holiday with his family. The Witney MP hopes the troubles of the past few weeks will be forgotten by the time he returns and that a new term will herald a new dawn for his party.

But Prime Minister Gordon Brown, who cut short his family holiday in Dorset to attend to the foot-and-mouth outbreak, has already out-manoeuvred him.

Not only has he yet to return to his holiday, but he has promised to take them in the UK - a much better PR stunt than Dave's trip to the Arctic on a dog sled to try to convince people he cares about global warming.

Has anyone seen the Shadow Arts Minister? The usually-prolific writer Tory MP for Wantage, Ed Vaizey, has failed to update his website since July 22, which by anyone's standards is slack. We know Westminster is in recess, but come on Ed - there are people out here who hang on your every word.

Tory grandee Lord Heseltine, the former Deputy Prime Minister and MP for Henley, wants to see more directly-elected mayors in the UK's major towns and cities.

Lord Heseltine, who heads one of David Cameron's pointless policy review panels, wants to slash regional bureaucracy.

But one can only hope it would lead to more mayors like Hartlepool's H'Angus the Monkey, alias Stuart Drummond. He is the official mascot of Hartlepool United Football Club, who the good people of the town in the North East voted in as their directly-elected mayor in 2002.