HYNDBURN MP Greg Pope is doing all he can to woo his Accrington voters following the success of the town's football club in the FA Cup.

He has put down a special Motion at Westminster congratulating Stanley on their progress.

The Early Day Motion -- which appears on Order Paper, Parliament's daily agenda sent to all MPs and Ministers -- wishes them all the best when they play Colchester in the fourth round replay.

Mr Pope expresses the hope that Accrington Stanley, famously the only club to voluntarily leave the Football League, will soon be back there where it belongs.

Conveniently for the MP, who also supports Blackburn Rovers, the Ewood Park club were eliminated by Birmingham in the third round.

MR POPE was also quick to leap to the defence of Blackburn MP Jack Straw who came 655th out of 659 MPs in terms of attendance at House of Commons votes.

He said: "Jack has the excuse of being Foreign Secretary for only making 19.5 per cent of divisions.

"I'm amazed to see that he had a better record than two of his Cabinet colleagues who work at Westminster and don't spend all their time travelling abroad as part of their job."

They are of course Chancellor Gordon Brown and Prime Minister Tony Blair, who came in at 658 and 659.

PARLIAMENTARY colleagues were amazed this week when Commons Speaker Michael Martin intervened to stop Pendle MP Gordon Prentice asking about vandalism in churches.

He had got halfway through his interrogation when Mr Martin intervened to say he should stop saying: "A brief question is the best way to conduct your affairs. I think the minister could answer that."

The fact that the minister in question, David Lammy, did nothing of the kind enraged other MPs.

One said: "This was a crass and stupid intervention by the Speaker which stopped Gordon making a very valid point."