CANDIDATES in a General Election expect to wear through some shoe leather as they tramp the streets in search of votes, but Darlington's Alan Milburn has also been clocking up both the air and road miles.

As Health Secretary, he is one of Labour's key campaigners alongside Tony Blair, Gordon Brown and David Blunkett, and when John Prescott punched a protestor on Wednesday it was Mr Milburn who was summoned from his bed to fly to London to present the acceptable face of New Labour on the following morning's television programmes.

Mr Milburn's week began last Monday with visits to hospitals in Birmingham, Stafford and The Wrekin. Tuesday found him in Weymouth in Dorset South which the Conservatives won by 77 votes in 1997.

"I was also looking for Oliver Letwin, the man rumoured to be behind the Tories' £20bn tax cuts, whose constituency is next door," said Mr Milburn who last night was tramping his own streets in Haughton. "I couldn't find him, but the lady at the local Conservative club said they were looking for him, too."

On Wednesday, Mr Milburn was back in Birmingham for Labour's national manifesto launch, then to Hexham, where his home is, to back the Labour candidate trying to overturn the Tories' 222 majority.

Then Mr Prescott got angry. "I was home very briefly when I got a phone call saying it had happened, so I was down in London by 2am and got out of bed at 5am to do some early morning television."

He dashed back to Darlington to take part in a debate at the Queen Elizabeth Sixth Form College with his opponents, Tony Richmond (Conservative) and Robert Adamson (LibDem). A few meetings later, he was flying back to London in readiness for Friday morning's national Press conference. He then toured Milton Keynes, Reading and Basingstoke, before returning to Darlington for a weekend on home territory.