AFTER 12 strictly on-message years as part of the Conservative leadership at County Hall, many politicos are wondering how Councillor Liz Eyre will get on tasked with picking holes in the current administration.

Councillor Eyre's new role is deputy chair of the council's scrutiny board, the main watchdog tasked with probing official policy, offering fresh perspectives, suggesting new ideas and generally playing devil's advocate for the greater good.

This week, she told fellow councillors a scrutiny report suggesting its UK-leading archives and archaeology service must be protected from £75 million of cuts due at the council by 2018 "blindly ignores" reality.

Isn't this a refreshing new vision!

* THE comeback kid is back in the saddle at Malvern Hills District Council, with Phil Grove duly restored to his lofty position as leader for a second time, bringing an air of calm after the utter chaos.

Tenbury's smoothest operator is obviously an avid reader of this column, and who can blame him.

"I remember you predicting back in February that I'd become leader again," he tells us.

They don't call me Nostradamus for nothing.

* WORCESTER'S new deputy mayor, Councillor Mike Whitehouse, welcomed some German visitors the other day - who told him back home in Kleve, their mayor stays in office "as long as he likes".

Is Councillor Amos booking his flight to Berlin already?

* COUNCILLOR Richard Udall says so many people want to moan about the Southern Link Road, he can "no longer" shop at the supermarket, so often is he halted in the aisles by disgruntled trolley-pushers who need someone, anyone to sound off too.

He says “every time I turn into an aisle” the queue of dismayed punters gets longer.

Just don't send that online home grocery delivery anywhere near the Ketch island, for heaven’s sake.

* LONG before he became Culture Secretary Worcestershire's Sajid Javid couldn't understand why he kept on getting recognised so frequently around London - but he does now.

Our man happens to look uncannily similar to Labour's Chuka Umunna, who represents Streatham in London, where Mr Javid keeps on getting stopped by mistake, including one very excited bloke who wanted a selfie with 'Chuka' recently.

"I consider it to be a compliment, but I'm not sure whether the same is true of him," he says.

Mind you, the reverse of this position could never happen – Chuka hasn’t been to Worcester, but he has, erm, been to ‘Wichita’.