POLITICIANS often kiss babies during election campaigns - but it's far rarer for them to kiss reporters.

But when our man Mark Choueke introduced himself to David Blunkett in Tredegar yesterday, the former home secretary broke into a grin and kissed him on both cheeks.

"Being from Yorkshire, I wanted to make amends on behalf of a friend of mine," Mr Blunkett said.

The friend he referred to was deputy prime minister John Prescott, who refused to answer Mark Choueke's question on Peter Law's candidacy for the Blaenau Gwent seat during a visit to Cwmbran last week.

When Choueke pressed for an answer, Prescott called him an amateur and told him to "bugger off".