First this week, the mysterious disappearance of Oxfordshire County Council's cycling strategy.

But was there ever one in the first place?

This week, The Insider has been struggling to get to the bottom of how important cycling is to the people at County Hall.

You might remember the big brouhaha some time ago, when the council, as the authority in charge of transport, wanted to make Oxford a "cycling city" with lots of shiny new schemes and initiatives.

It failed — and as a result it lost out on lots of money.

So what now? What about all these schemes for Continental-style cycle hire and new lanes?

From what we are told, there has been "renewed political focus on cycling" at County Hall but little to back that up.

It will be interesting to see how cycling fits in with plans to pedestrianise large swathes of the city centre.

We predict a riot if bikes were ever banned from, say, Turl Street.

  • Old County Hall in Oxford is a lovely and, as its name suggests, an old building. It's a shame then that someone has decided to hang a grubby piece of green tarpaulin over its frontage in a shameless bid to advertise the fact the streets of Oxford could soon be bus-free.

We remember someone tried this trick not so long ago, when the county council was rated as an excellent local authority, but had to take the plastic sheet down when it was stripped of a star.

If only someone had paid closer attention to some of the material churned out by County Hall to publicise Transform Oxford.

We notice that one leaflet about a pedestrianised Queen Street shows a picture... of a bus.

  • So where do you stand on the Jonathan Ross/Russell Brand fiasco, then? It seems like the world and his wife — or is that just every member of the House of Commons — has waded into the debate over whether the BBC Radio 2 DJs over-stepped the mark in comments made about actor Andrew Sachs and his grand-daughter.

For Conservatives, it's hand-rubbing time, as they sense a chance for payback after Ross's obscene comments about David Cameron and Margaret Thatcher, made when the Tory leader appeared on his Friday night TV show earlier this year.

Wantage MP Ed Vaizey, the shadow arts minister, is not one of Ross's army of fans.

He said: "I think Jonathan Ross's salary is extraordinary and on no possible commercial grounds can it be justified — it's 30 times the Prime Minister's salary."

  • Oxfordshire County Council has got its excuses in early ahead of the annual moan that comes with the local government grant settlement.

Each year, County Hall bemoans the cash it is given by Whitehall to fund the lion's share of services across Oxfordshire.

So it was interesting to read council leader Keith Mitchell's take on what might lie ahead.

He said: "Government borrowing is now through the roof, to an extent none of us thought we would ever see. Sooner or later, the books will have to be balanced — how will that be achieved?

"There will have to be scapegoats along the way. Everyone in local government is probably going to have to fight hard to make sure that councils are not one of those scapegoats."