TORY Roger Knight often brings council meetings to life with his colourful jokes, but the jibes were on him during a meeting at the Guildhall on Wednesday.

Halfway through a discussion about the fortunes of Worcester’s Hopmarket shopping precinct, his iPad starting barking out orders to “turn left at the next junction”.

After he fumbled around in an attempt to mute the sound or turn the device off, the debate started once more, only for a robotic voice to scream “turn left” no fewer than three more times before a flustered Coun Knight was able to switch it off.

Is somebody trying to tell the rightwinger something?

THE ongoing row over wheelie bins in Malvern is causing varying degrees of political eruption, and now Tony Blair has been dragged into the dispute.

You may know that town councillor Mike Charles is currently being hauled over the coals for comments made against district council officer Ivor Pumfrey.

The Source has been passed a detailed version of Coun Charles’ tirade, in which he likened the member of staff’s behaviour to what he considers the “illegal war” declared by Mr Blair on Iraq.

He claimed fellow politicians had been “hoodwinked” into thinking wheelie bins were a good idea thanks to “clever, manipulative efforts” of the officers.

During his outburst Coun Charles also claimed Mr Pumfrey “closed the toilets and didn’t want traffic wardens”.

Mr Pumfrey’s typed response said in 25 years of local government, he had “never experienced such a tirade”, adding that he felt it was “derogatory and offensive”.

And that’s just the comparisons to Tony Blair.

POOR Karen Lumley was invited to a reception at Buckingham Palace earlier this month, only to have to hobble along on crutches.

The Tory MP for Redditch had come an innocent cropper on the stairs one morning, but Prince Philip wasn’t believing a word of it.

Leaning towards her ear, he whispered: “IfI were you,I’d take more water with it next time.”

NOW George Osborne has cut 1p from a pint of beer, landlords and drinkers across Worcestershire can rejoice.

All you need to do is drink 1,000 pints, and you’ll have saved yourself a tenner. Don’t spend it all at once.