PITY poor old Greg Pope whose holiday plans proved as problem filled as being an MP.

First of all the Hyndburn Labour backbencher promised his family that he would sort out their plans.

But pressure at the Commons led to him delaying the necessary phone calls so that he was in big trouble with his family.

Finally, under severe pressure from wife Kate and the children, at the last minute he secured two weeks in Northern Majorca.

But even this backfired as he confessed: "The roads to the mountains were single track and the twistiest I had ever seen .

"As I was driving my right-hand drive hire car down the mountain we met a bus coming up. It clearly was not going to move so I had to back the car several miles up hairpin bends with no safety barrier and a drop of several hundred feet to the side.

"I finally performed the quickest U-turn ever seen by a politician!''

His Rossendale and Darwen Labour colleague Janet Anderson did without a proper vacation, spending most of her time in the constituency.

Perhaps with New Labour's popularity on the wane she has recalled the fate of her Tory predecessor Sir David Trippier, who lost to her in1992 by just 120 votes.

Foriegn Secretary and Blackburn MP Jack Straw managed to fit in his traditional trip to France with the globe-trotting associated with his job, including a trip to New York for the September 11 memorial services and a speech to the UN.

Pendle MP Gordon Prentice applied even stiffer security precautions, refusing to tell even his staff where he was taking his three-week break.

Burnley's Peter Pike spent a week in Botswana with a Parliamentary delegation looking at the problems caused by HIV/AIFS and the plight of the nomadic Bushmen. Mr Pike came home only to take his family for three weeks to nearby South Africa.

Another visitor to that country was Ribble Valley Tory Nigel Evans who attended the Earth Summit in Johannesburg. He was also in New York for September 11 and a few days with friends.

But, like Mrs Anderson, he spent most of the break in the constituency or in his Westminster office.