POLITICAL life at County Hall is going cerebral with Dr George Lord becoming council leader.

He's a former lecturer in philosophy with - in his own words - "several degrees from several universities".

And his speciality is the work of Wittgenstein, a thinker who concentrated on logic and linguistics.

So can we look forward to an era of farsighted, level-headed decision-making? Don't hold your breath.

Dr Lord heads a minority administration. Things will be complicated further in September, when the Government will tinker with the structure of the county council again as part of its supposed "modernisation agenda".

Amid all the uncertainty, and with an eye on the Kidderminster hospital lobby, he's given the council the Portillo treatment.

Dr Lord, who represents Alvechurch, wants to be "inclusive" and set aside "yah boo" politics in favour of co-operation.

I was mildly surprised to find him relaxed about the council's future, given the Government's enthusiasm for regional assemblies.

"A lot of people have said they think Worcestershire County Council will only be around for another four years, but I'm not worried," he said.

"There wasn't anything about regional assemblies in the Queen's Speech and, if you look at the Labour manifesto, it refers only to 'regional government in relation to unitary authorities'."

Dr Lord told me he felt 90 per cent of the council's business was non-political, and only became contentious when it affected a particular community, such as the park-and-ride scheme in Perdiswell.

But he's adamantly refusing to slaughter the two Conservative sacred cows - "efficiency gains" and siphoning funds from education to social services - that led to blazing rows in the past when his party was led by Coun June Longmuir.

The first may spark concerns about redundancies, although I can't see much radicalism on the horizon. All parties say they're in favour of cutting bureaucracy, but rarely succeed.

However, any call for school budgets to be slimmed down will put him on a collision course not only with Labour and the Liberal Democrats, but with officers and parents too. Would this really be a logical move?