CONFUSION abounds at West Worcestershire's Conservative Association, which is preparing for a night of schmoozing at New Road cricket ground two weeks tonight.

Local bigwigs have secured the services of top Government minister Greg Hands, but how much they really know about this chap is open to debate.

The branch website advises people to ring a number for ticket prices to see the 'Chief Secretary to the Treasury' - a role he actually gave up four months ago to become a trade minister.

Whoops!

* CLEARLY losing the plot, Worcestershire County Council has turned to a psychologist to try and win over motorists - and we aren't joking.

On Wednesday a press release was sent out declaring how County Hall had "teamed up" with Dr Daniel Farrelly - a psychologist at the University of Worcester - to examine the link between the commute home and happiness.

The guff, designed to drum up yet more publicity for the £12 million 'Driving Home' roads revamp, included pearls of wisdom like "the drive home evokes memories of nostalgia, fondness and happiness".

What next, a psychiatrist for advice on council tax?

* FOLLOWING that parliamentary report on terrible mobile phone signals the debate has raged about how bad things really are - but Worcester MP and Brexit minister Robin Walker reckons he knows the shoddiest location of the lot.

"I can tell you where the worst signal is, my office in Downing Street - it's terrible," he says as the line crackles.

We'll never exit the EU at this rate.

* LAST weekend's big Aston Villa v Birmingham City football clash divided scores of county politicians, with many of them professed followers of one side or the other.

Chief among them is Labour's Richard Udall, a Bluenose who is invoking memories of 1966 by disputing the was-it-wasn't-it 'goal' that never was on Sunday.

He said: "The vast majority of the ball was over the line - if that goal was allowed in the 1966 World Cup final, this goal should also be allowed."

Can someone send his county council divisional fund cash to Specsavers?

* THE job is hardly going to be fun at the best of times but Cllr Marcus Hart, the current cabinet member for highways at County Hall, still maintains a sense of humour six months into his new role.

In his latest report for councillors, he writes: "It has certainly been a very busy six months - especially in the first week, when on the second day of my tenure Eastham Bridge collapses."