BREAKING NEWS: IT'S OKAY TO NOT AGREE WITH THE TORIES. IN FACT IT'S BLOOMING MARVELLOUS

The wonderful thing about the Tories is that their true character is just beneath the surface and it only needs a scratch to expose it. Thus the comments of the Tory leader of Oxfordshire County Council in response to students daring to step into his fiefdom in central Oxford - a public building owned by Council taxpayers to which students, as citizens, are entitled to enter, although not to disrupt - are entirely within the bounds of this negative, fearful, backward-looking party.

Describing them as badly dressed and 'ugly', the good Tory later decried them on the radio, saying of the demonstration: 'this is a dangerous infection in our country which needs to be stamped on'. And that's Conservatism. The cuddly Cameronites dropping their 't's and hugging huskies are a thin veneer over the old-fashioned, reactionary forces which pervade our councils and constituencies across the country. The 'our' in that sentence is important because we need to challenge the execrable Tory idea that we should be humble subjects to which services are provided. No. We pay their allowances so we should have far more of a say over what is done to us. That's something LDs are working hard to achieve in the coalition and I am sure it puts the willies up many people who might be affected.

For the benefit of clarity, of course I don't support the students in disrupting the work of the County Council and I don't support any illegal activity. However, I do recognise the right of people to demonstrate peacefully and I accept that that some young people involved in this demonstration may have been carried along by the usual rent-a-mob wasters who spoil all such protests by their idiotic actions in the name of some '-ism' or other, before they slope off to mummy on the weekend with their washing. That doesn't mean that the majority of the demonstration was an illegal anarchist attempt to take over Oxfordshire or that the majority of the people involved are necessarily 'ugly' or 'badly dressed'. (When you break these comments down they sound increasingly absurd.)

I wish David Cameron well and I applaud his efforts to modernise his party but I fear that his hard work to drag them into the 20th century (one century at a time, folks) will ultimately fail at the first sign of trouble as the 'old' Tories will drag him down under the weight of their own hubris. The leader of Oxfordshire County Council cried 'god help us' as these students are the future of our country. Well we should all thank god that some people are increasingly rooted in the past and pray that they will eventually become an irrelevance.

If you don't like free speech, councillor, leave the country. Please.

THE ROAD TO HAPPINESS IN OXFORDSHIRE

The end of our road was repaired yesterday. This is a good thing, is it not? Well, not exactly.

The road is two miles long and connects my village with the outside world. It is the main road which is gritted - or not if you go back to last January - and, for our humble community, it is important. The problem is that the county council has deemed it sensible to repair the damage from the last freeze in the middle of a new freeze.

This is despite their pronouncements in January that it would be madness to repair roads in freezing conditions because the ice gets in below the repair and breaks it once more. This is also, note, ten months since the road sustained damage.

Now I shouldn't complain. Here in Tory Oxfordshire we should be grateful that the council repairs our roads, shouldn't we? After all, the county council has very little money - so little that it must close libraries - or at lest threaten their communities with closure to encourage the peasants to run them independently. The county is also likely to threaten our schools with myriad cuts, all once more aimed at sharing the pain a little.

Quite so, quite so, which is why I welcome the cut to councillors' allowances, to the leaders' allowance and, of course, to the Chief Executive's rather generous pay settlement. I assume these will be announced any time soon, along with the withdrawal of the free food and wine for councillors which accompanies their meetings. We must all share the pain.

So I shall go off to Witney today to purchase a cap which I can doff as the largesse of the council is spread beyond us poor people and I shall keep it in the cupboard ready to brandish in a suitably 'umble manner when they come to repair the newly damaged road next winter.

I am just thankful the electronic road signs remain in place to keep us informed about the slow drift of Oxford towards Moscow.

CAN NO ONE SEE WHAT'S HAPPENING TO OXFORD?!

Woah! Really getting scary now. The shiny, expensive electronic road sign on the A40 this morning told me that it would be 20 minutes to the Oxford Park and Ride, up from 11 last week.

Forget the Koreas. Forget William and Kate. Oxford is moving east!

Thank God the county council invested in these expensive white elephants. Otherwise I would never have known this.

INFORMATION WON'T HURT, IT WILL SIMPLY BORE US ALL

A report on the BBC website noted that the leader of Oxfordshire County Council - his picture rather appropriately resembling a painting by Munch - has said that the government's plans for Councils to publish all their expenditure will cost money. I read on, interested, then discovered that there was actually no story here. I discovered simply that Conservatives at Oxfordshire's County Hall simply revert to type when pushed and insist that the patrician approach to politics is always best, i.e. people don't need to know too much, they should be cared for, patted on the head and given a job at the local mill.

Rather nicely, the government disagrees and has established a principle that providing people with information about where their money is spent is, er, democratic. The Tory leader in Oxfordshire said dramatically on the BBC yesterday that they spend £1bn a year - which is precisely the point. That £1bn is partly my money and I want to see it being spent wisely. Oxfordshire does quite well in terms of sound finances so I would suggest to the good Tory that he has nothing to fear from providing this information.

There will be an additional cost to the Council and there will be a cohort of tedious people with nothing better to do than quibble over tiny details - I used to work for a Council and we knew ours by name - but that's democracy. Messy, troublesome, difficult, annoying, energising, illuminating, pluralising, liberating democracy. Surely the Tories in Oxfordshire support democracy.

By the way, this morning I learned that it would take me 14 minutes to get to the Oxford Park and Ride, up from 11 minutes last week. I learnt this thanks to the invaluable electronic signs on the A40. Worth every penny, I say, although it is strangely troubling that Oxford, like a city in a Philip Reeve novel, appears to be moving further away every day.

OXFORDSHIRE - WHERE TECHNOLOGY COUNTS

Thank heavens for the Oxfordshire County Council electronic road signs, which prove ever more invaluable by the day. Today I discovered that it would take me 12 minutes to get to the Park and Ride, whereas yesterday it was 11 minutes.

I must say I was mightily relieved to have this information to hand as it greatly aided my journey. Who needs staff at County Hall to provide social care and education when there's up-to-the-minute hardware like this? Well done the Tories!

SHINY ROAD SIGNS

Here in Oxfordshire where the Tory county council is threatening cuts of around 1,000 staff with no real detail yet, our shiny electronic road signs continue to provide fantastic value for money.

This morning opn the A40 I was advised that the evenings are getting darker and that I should consequently give more space to cyclists.

Absolutely. I am a cyclist and I agree entirely with this thought. However, I'm still not sure it is worth the huge expense of rigging up and maintaining these ludicrous signs which only provide information which could not be done with posters about six times a year.

I know when the fair is in Oxford. I know I need to 'think bike'. I know I need to keep my distance. I'm not an idiot, honest.

Still, hang the expense, spend money on gewgaws and sack the staff, that seems to be the Tory way in Oxfordshire. The good news is that the traffic remains very sedate in the county because, 10 months after the freezing weather the roads remain in an appalling state. Safety first.

THE BUCK STOPS IN OXFORD

Thanks to Oxfordshire County Council cuts we now no longer have any speed cameras in the county and, according to their own statistics and national news coverage, a lot more cars are speeding as a result. The Tory County Council will of course blame the government for these cuts but this was a local decision.

Blaming central government might be a good retort if it wasn't for the fact that, for example, we still have an array of utterly pointless electronic road signs - all emblazoned with the county council badge - which were installed last year to give me such vital information as 'Think! Bike' and that if going to Oxford I should use the Park and Ride. Couldn't both these entirely valid messages have been displayed via the medium of a poster or even a sturdy metal sign, since both remain important whatever the day? These signs are a gimmick and to remove them would be to admit an error in installing them in the first place. Step forward, hubris.

There is nothing wrong with a bit of politically expedient buck-passing over cuts and some of this will be valid but shouldn't the county council have considered more obvious and sensible savings to the roads budgets before endangering road users.

Speaking of the Park and Ride, I use it a few times a year yet I subsidise its more regular use by others as the County Council decided, in an election year, that the car parks should be free to use. I wonder if some savings could be found here by charging the people who use this service. I only ask...

The buck stops at County Hall and any politician worth their salt would look again at the decision to shut down the speed cameras, which is demonstrably - by their own evidence - an error with significant risks.

Should they insist that all is fine and dandy with their road safety policy, I wonder if they might respond to the outcry from residents over the appalling state of our roads following the freeze of last winter - not helped by the abject failure of the county council to grit more than about 10% of roads. Surely roads without huge holes in them are safer?

Until common sense breaks out at County Hall, roads such as the busy A44 in Woodstock will witness the return of Wacky Races through this popular tourist destination while pedestrians flee as more cars, lorries and buses race through, particularly down a rather steep hill which has a well used zebra crossing at the bottom.