Reading is bracing itself for an orgy of congratulations in the local newspapers as editors fall over themselves to praise John Madejski, the man who owns most of the town, donates thousands of pounds to the the local Conservative Party's coffers and has the local Labour party by the balls over funding for the Madejski Academy and the Station Hill development.

The news of the honour for Sir John in the New Year's honours list comes as no surprise after Tony Blair last February openly admitted using the honours system to reward tycoons who gave money to support Academy Schools. At a Downing Street press conference, Mr Blair said he was perfectly comfortable for people to believe that those who helped finance his city academies scheme were rewarded by the government through the honours system. Giving money to a government scheme, the then Prime Minister said, was like donating money to support an art gallery.

"It's not a question of endorsing my policy, it's a question of contributing to society," Mr Blair said. "It is absolutely right that we say these are people who have done something good for our country." He continued: "Especially when it saves Labour from having to spend real money on education so that we can continue to piss tax payers monies up the wall on consultants and PFI contracts."

Reading's child protection services have been graded "inadequate" in a damning report from OfSted. However, the Labour council have welcomed the finding that once again as services under their care are already at rock bottom, the only way is up.

Lead councillor for children’s service Pete Ruhemann said: "Let's hope that the local press don't start looking into this damning report on child care in Reading and linking the death of Baby-P despite being on the at risk register with the death in Reading of Child-T despite being on the at risk register or I'll really be in trouble. If you think I'll be following the lead of Liz Santry, Haringey's Cabinet member for children and young people, by resigning, think again."

 Reading Local Safeguarding Children Report into Child T

Rob Wilson has stepped into the row over Reading Borough Council's LIVE Reading magazine. The council rag which managed 17 mentions of Labour councillors in the run up to last year's local elections will cost £56,020 in the coming year – a rise of more than 30 per cent, mainly due to a fall in advertising revenue from the local Labour Party.

Rob Wilson complained: "This is why I believe the council should take a metaphorical leaf out of Boris’ book by scrapping the mag and replacing it with a tree planting programme across the borough, and maybe shagging a few journalists for good measure whilst we're at it. Go Boris!"

A council spokesperson defended the magazine. "This is a much more cost effective way to communicate with residents than producing a raft of separate leaflets containing former leader David Sutton's telephone number instead of the elected councillor's."

Meanwhile tax payers have hit back at the Reading East MP by asking Rob Wilson to save thousands more trees by scrapping his "Parliamentary Reports" sent to every home in the constituency in increasing frequency near elections paid for out of the snouts in the trough Parliamentary allowances.

Reading Conservatives have launched a stinging attack on their own website after independent analysis showed that it failed the standard tests for colour, 508 Standards and suffered from 47 problems on the WAI scale.

Councillor Andrew Cumpsty, Leader of the Conservative Group, commented "This is a damning indictment of the Reading East Conservatives' website. For some time, local Conservatives have been calling for other sites to be improved and pointing out their flaws, but this shows that we can't be trusted to keep our own house in order before criticising others. For Reading East Conservatives site to fail the standard tests when we pride ourselves on having so many Information Technology professionals in our party, is a disgrace. I hope that urgent action will now be taken to bring the site up to an acceptable standard."

The Tuesday meeting of the Corporate Community and External Affairs committee (CCEA) was disrupted by a fire alarm which saw the panel charged with overseeing the work of Reading Borough Council having to flee the building.

Council Leader Jo Lovelock mysteriously disappeared from the council chamber shortly before the alarm went off, just before the committee was about to discuss ID cards. However, she denied that it was an attempt to stifle discussion of the controversial scheme which has critics within the local Labour Party after she was overheard saying to fellow Labour members: "Refurbishment is not an option, well not anymore it isn't!"

Unfortunately for her plans to destroy the civic, the high levels of asbestos in the building means that it will live to fight another day.

After the recent credit crunch summit, Reading council leader Jo Lovelock has urged small businesses to check whether they are entitled to received the small business rate relief.

Councillor Lovelock told us: "We sat around all day and all agreed that in keeping with Labour Party national policy we were going to do absolutely bugger all in practical terms to help people other than tell them to claim stuff that they were already entitled to and pretend it is new help." She denied however that the small business rate relief was targeting the wrong areas. "I disagree with that interpretation. Thanks to Alistair Darling, pretty soon all our businesses will be small businesses... like MFI and Woolworth."

A Reading based charity has scooped the jackpot after winning more than £50,000 from The People's Millions. The irony of an organisation getting money from a tax on the poor to help people who get into debt buying Lottery tickets was lost as organisations started fighting to take the credit for the win.

Local Conservatives press released their support of the lottery bid after the win. Andrew Cumpsty told us how he had single handedly won the bid after urging attendees of the Reading 2020 Partnership meeting to make sure they voted. "Without my strong leadership, people present at the meeting would not have taken any notice of the previous speaker who asked us all to vote from them. Without my determined bandwagon jumping, the bid would have been lost and I'm sure that the Credit Union would like to thank the Conservatives for their unceasing support over the last few days which made this press release possible."

Martin Salter denounced the Conservative attempt to hijack the win, proudly proclaiming that it was he 'Wot Won It'. "Without the Labour Party's national policy of ensuring that everyone is in poverty and soon to require Credit Union bailouts because there will soon be no banks left, this bid would not have even been on the agenda."

In the interest of fairness we should also point out the Reading Borough Council, The Evening Post, the Reading Chronicle, the Greens, the unions, the Cats Protection League and Uncle Tom Cobbley and all are also claiming credit for the win.