Darwen and Rossendale MP Janet Anderson spent yesterday at the new Wembley Stadium site.

She was with the all-party House of Commons Select Committee for the Department of Culture, Media and Sport where she was a minister.

She said of the troubled project: "It is looking very good. It is going to be the best stadium in the world.

"In fact it would be ideal for when Blackburn Rovers get to their next cup final."

RIBBLE Valley MP Nigel Evans was yesterday at a meeting of the Council of Europe in Strasbourg which proposed granting prisoners across Europe full conjugal rights.

Mr Evans told his colleagues: "This is ridiculous. This would allow prisoners to father children they couldn't possibly support while they were behind bars putting another burden on the state."

His attempt to veto the move was defeated by 12 votes, his own.

PENDLE MP Gordon Prentice was at the Canadian High Commission in London at breakfast time on Wednesday.

He was there to observe the result of that country's general election.

The fact that a sharp, bright right-winger, not a little like new Tory Leader David Cameron, beat an ageing left-wing Prime Minister, not unlike Chancellor Gordon Brown, who is expected to have the UK job come the next time the government goes to the country, was not reassuring news for the Labour back bencher.

CHORLEY MP Lindsay Hoyle had a brief exchange with the tallest MP in the Commons, Shrewsbury and Atcham's Daniel Kawczynski.

The Tory told him: "I certainly had a bottle of milk every day when I was at school and I have grown to be 6ft 8ins. That shows the benefits of drinking

milk."

Mr Hoyle, considerably shorter, said it was obvious that while Mr Kawczynski clearly got a litre of double Jersey milk, he and the rest of the House of

Commons got just a third of a pint.

Kitty Ussher tells me that this joke is doing the rounds at Parliament this week:

What is the connection between Julius Caesar and Charles Kennedy? Answer: They were both stabbed in the back by men wearing sandals.