WHILE JACK Straw heads off for Brussels for a crucial summit on the controversial new European Constitution, he is not the only East Lancashire MP on his travels -- Burnley's Peter Pike is off to Pakistan.

He is part of a UK Commonwealth Parliamentary Association delegation and will discuss whether the country can be readmitted to the international body.

Mr Pike, with many constituents from the area, said Pakistan was working hard with other member countries to end its suspension from the Commonwealth.

The visit will take in the capital Islamabad, the Kashmiri border, Lahore and Karachi.

Mr Pike said: "I have been to Pakistan before and I know that we will be well looked after but we will be worked hard."

IT'S nice to see that despite losing his job as Shadow Welsh Secretary, Nigel Evans has not lost interest in the land of his fathers.

This week the Swansea-born Ribble Valley MP was urging the hospital in his home city to use extra police officers to deal with drunks who turn up in casualty.

He said that anyone who attacks a nurse or a doctor should "receive a hangover that lasts well into 2004."

I am sure the hospital staff will be glad of his intervention but whether the revellers of Swansea will be quite so happy is another matter.

ROSSENDALE and Darwen MP Janet Anderson won one of the prizes in the raffle for My Wife's School in Oxfordshire -- the oldest in Britain.

She was delighted to receive a pair of secateurs and a book on country living, saying: "I love gardening and I need a new pair of secateurs."

But she was a bit perplexed as to whether her house in South East London or in Darwen was her country residence.

On reflection she decided that although the garden was smaller, Darwen was a lot prettier than Lewisham.