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.

Rob Wilson has expressed concern at his party's line on getting tough on immigrants after junk mail delivery workers failed to make it to Tier Two of the points-based immigration system.

He wailed: "How the hell will I be able to get out my piss-poor tax payer funded 'Parliamentary Report' if there aren't enough Iraqi refugees to pound the streets of Reading delivering it?"

Local Conservatives have hit out at Government policies which they say have reduced the numbers of council houses sold to tenants under right-to-buy schemes. In a press release, regurgitated uncritically, Rob Wilson and Alok Sharma have highlighted the reduction in discounts given over the last ten years to tenants.

Rob Wilson told us: "In 1998, £22,800 was 50% of the house price. Now the current figure of £25,340 is only 24% of the house price. Conservatives say that councils should be forced to make up the difference and hand out an extra £30,000 of your money to all council tenants who want to buy their houses. It's unfair that council tenants should be denied the democratic right to live in negative equity paid for out of everyone else's council tax." Alok Sharma said: "Vote Conservative, if you want more state handouts to the few."

Martin Salter has denied wasting hundreds of pounds of council tax payers money by asking for a breakdown of the costs of changing the name of Reading to 'Reading-on-Thames', despite it being an obvious throw-away-remark by Reading East MP Rob Wilson.

"This accusation is cobblers," he said. "Reading Council already does my bidding so why would this small expenditure make a difference? We all know I own this town. Who's the Daddy? Come on, Who's the Daddy?

"Obviously if we'd got 'City' status changing our name to Reading City Council would have been money well spent... because I thought of it."