JACK Straw may have thought he had enough on his plate with yesterday's debate on Iraq without finding himself on baby watch.

His own children, William and Charlotte, are long since grown-up but he has spent the week standing by the mobile on behalf of his political adviser Ed Owen whose wife, Joanne, is about to give birth.

The Foreign Secretary and Blackburn MP revealed his new job when addressing a meeting on behalf of the Cystic Fibrosis Trust. Ed's daughter Ella suffers from the condition.

Mr Straw revealed: "We are on the phone every hour to find out how Joanne is getting on and whether Ed needs to leave. We are on constant alert in case Joanne goes into labour."

MANY think Burnley MP Peter Pike is bananas but at the Labour Conference he proved he knew more than a bit about the tropical fruit!

He was approached by London delegate Eric Cato to support the campaign to save the Caribbean banana industry under threat from American firms importing cheap bananas from mainland South America.

Mr Pike told him: "I know all about bananas from the West Indies and the Winward Islands. Indeed, I was the first person to have mentioned St Vincent and the Grenadines, some of Winward Islands, in the Commons."

Mr Cato was duly impressed.

FORMER Education Welfare Officer Greg Pope, who used to spend his time rounding up children bunking off school, admitted this week: "I've been playing truant. Instead of being at Conference I have been at work in my constituency doing things like attending the Lancashire Ambulance Service headquarters and, oddly enough, going back to school to meet the head of Accrington and Rossendale College."

MR Straw's Europe Minister at the Foreign Office, Denis McShane, turned up at Conference without his pass. He was fearful he would have to wait six hours to get a replacement but luckily was recognised and given a fast-track new passport into the hall.