IT'S a tough life being an MP. At least it was for the chairman of the Select Committee on Transport, Huw Merriman.

On what is referred to as a fact-finding mission to assess the lack of parking provision for lorries in Kent, the minibus in which MPs were travelling pulled into a lay-by.

As he stepped off the minibus he found what he thought to be terra firma but was actually human excrement.

Oh well, at least he can claim to have first-hand knowledge of the problems associated with the lack of proper parks for hauliers.

Dover TAP has been deployed 13 times this month after new Brexit regulations came in, leading to queues that could be seen from space.

IT was one of those weeks where are the political focus zoomed in on something that hasn't happened rather than had.

The space left by the the unpublished report into Partygate succeeded in generating wild conspiracies.

Thankfully none of which tied the issue do to the the death of Princess Diana or Shergar the missing race horse.

There was none the less a social media meltdown which spread theories and explanations, claims and counterclaims more rapidly then a petri dish incubated in an oven.

You can always tell when commentators and analysts - including the media - are clutching at the thinnest of straws by the number of times they refer to “ sources close to” and say “it is understood that.”

Sometimes sources are said to come from “senior figures” - a way of implying the commentator in question hasn't relied on the delivery boy or security guard for their inside information.

At some points, Twitter was awash with so many contradictory theories It made your head hurt. At any one time, it was claimed the report was indefinitely delayed; not delayed at all; that it had been commandeered by the Metropolitan Police; that the police had raised no objections; that it would be delivered overnight and released in the morning or that it would be held back for weeks because of the police investigation.

You could have claimed that Postman Pat was delivering it but had stopped for tea and cakes with Mrs Coggins and no one would have batted an eyelid.

Some 24 hours later, we were still none the wiser about when it would be made public but the revelation that lawyers were now poring over the contents meant only one thing: that anyone eagerly anticipating its release before next week was going to be sadly disappointed.

HOW many hospital frontline staff have yet to receive any covid vaccinations? We would like to be able to tell you but Kent hospital trusts say that to release the data might be misleading.

However rest assured that the trusts are ramping up their efforts to meet the government’s targets.

A spokesman for NHS Kent and Medway said: “Vaccination remains the best protection against the Covid virus and the vast majority of NHS staff have already had their second jab.

“The NHS across Kent and Medway continues to support and encourage staff who have not yet been vaccinated to take up the offer of the 1st and 2nd doses ahead of the 1st April, when government regulations come into effect. Where people have not had a vaccination we are having individual discussions about the reasons.”