Oxfordshire County Council leader Keith Mitchell, a staunch patriot and man who once said he was "proud to be politically incorrect", has hoisted the flag of St George in the garden of his country home in Adderbury, near Banbury.

He also has St George's stickers on the front and rear registration plates of his BMW car but claimed it has nothing to do with the current football World Cup.

He said: "My sense of patriotism is strong, it pre-dates the current football frenzy, it will also survive it. My little Z3 has always sported St George's crosses on the number plates where some sport the dreaded EU stars."

Mr Mitchell also revealed he has a Skull & Crossbones flag which, we assume, is flown on the days Argentina and Germany are playing.

Tanned and toned David Cameron, the Witney MP and Conservative Party leader, was looking more like David Hasselhoff when spotted enjoying the scorching weather at Chipping Norton Lido last weekend, so says our poolside mole with the rubber ring.

Dave, decked in trendy board shorts, took Samantha and children Nancy, Ivan and four-month-old Arthur for a splash at the west Oxfordshire equivalent of Malibu Beach on Saturday, during a weekend in his constituency.

Wantage Conservative MP Ed Vaizey is not among the Tory big-hitters it would appear certainly not judging from his recent foray with the latest sporting craze urban cricket.

Mr Vaizey joined children at Drayton Primary School, near Abingdon, for a playground rerun of last summer's Ashes heroics as part of a day laid on by energy supplier npower. Let's just say his time at the crease was more Michael Barrymore than Michael Vaughan. He said: "Not only did they exhaust their MP by making him bat and bowl, they also exhausted the children with a lot of knowledge about the earth's climate and global warming.

"From what I could tell, the kids really enjoyed themselves, not only in bowling me out, but also in learning so much useful stuff in such a fun way."

Boris Johnson has unleashed a tirade of abuse at the bureaucracy involved in mounting solar panels and other eco-energy contraptions on the side of homes. You may recall the trouble David Cameron is having trying to get permission to whack a wind turbine atop his trendy Notting Hill abode. But the Conservative MP for Henley, another Vote Blue, Go Green disciple, told the Guardian Unlimited website: "You should see the regulations surrounding solar panels at the moment.

"Our constituents on modest incomes who want to put them in have to spend £200 on architects' drawings and another £150 in the planning process. A terraced house that was built in the 1950s should not be so swaddled in planning regulations that you can't put on a four-by-two-foot solar panel that's an inch thick.

"That's ridiculous. We're already a nation barnacled with Murdoch satellite dishes is it really so offensive to have wind turbines and solar panels?"