THE Government has spent the best part of five years working on a review of the "unfair" funding formula for education and local government.

I would have expected a work of such epic proportions to have been thoroughly proofread before making its way to the printers.

Alas, this appears not to have been the case - as anyone hoping to take part in the public consultation on plans to give Worcestershire's schools either an extra £3.9m or, alternatively, nothing at all, would have found out.

One key question in the weighty consultation document reads: "Whether would it be helpful to present they system in this way, even if the underlying formulae are more complex?"

However, my mind is open to the view that the question appears exactly as intended.

Perhaps local government officials have been asked to start writing in exactly the same way as their boss, Deputy Prime Minister John "Two Jabs" Prescott speaks.

In a language all of his own.