The age of austerity has already hit the Cameron household, it would appear.

Witney MP and Prime Minister David Cameron was a guest on ITV’s This Morning when cameras picked up he was wearing a sock with a large hole in it.

As he says, “we are all in this together”.

But with a PM’s salary of £142,000, let’s hope he wasn’t banking on using his child benefit to pay for some new hosiery.

And The Insider wonders what fellow Oxfordshire MP – and the minister for fashion, among many other duties – Ed Vaizey made of his leader’s sartorial faux pas?

Oxford City Council's deputy leader Ed Turner immersed himself in the culture of Munich last week – at the world-famous Oktoberfest.

He joined around 6.4 million beer lovers for the 17-day beer festival.

Mr Turner – who used to live in the German city – is a regular at the annual event (which sees seven million mugs of beer go down the hatch) and by all accounts he throws himself into every tradition.

He even has his own lederhosen!

Henley MP John Howell proved his specialist Mastermind subject is not his own political record – nor the life and times of his leader David Cameron.

He took part in a pub quiz at the Rising Sun in Thame to fulfil a pledge made to the regular quizmaster Brian West during this year’s General Election campaign.

His team, named Milleband (sic) Experience, comprised Mr Howell, Mike Dyer, Nick and Hilly Carter, and Nigel and Alison Champken Woods.

Mike reported: “The team’s performance was quite credible, scoring 90.5 pts out of a possible 110, finishing sixth out of 12 or 13 teams, many of whom are regulars.

“However, none of us recognised a picture of a young David Cameron, and John was 44 votes out when a question asked what his majority had been at the General Election (it was 16,588, but we answered 16,544).”

Eagle-eyed Oxford United fans might have spotted a very young James Constable in the Oxford Mail birthday announcements last week.

The striker – known as Beano – celebrated his 26th birthday with a victory over npower League 2 leaders Port Vale at the Kassam Stadium.

His family and friends celebrated his special day by putting a picture of a much younger Constable in the local paper – a baby-faced Beano as a toddler.