THEY'RE off! By the time you read this, your hardworking MP could be half way to Tuscany for his or her annual summer break.

National security means I cannot reveal the holiday destination of Health Secretary Alan Milburn. However, rumour has it that the Darlington MP is more than looking forward to his break after a battery of sleepless nights in the run-up to this week's publication of the NHS plan.

But knackered or not, Alan still had enough wits about him late on Tuesday night to avert an embarrassing gaffe in the executive summary of the great plan.

Just seconds before he signed off the document and set the printing presses rolling, Mr Milburn spotted that a minion had written that the NHS had been created in 1984.

With a rapid stroke of the pen, that was changed to 1948 and cynical hacks across the country were denied a gleeful poke at New Labour rewriting history yet again.

YES, the Commons' holiday season has started, but spare a thought for poor old Ashok Kumar.

The MP for Middlesbrough South and East Cleveland will be laid up for weeks as he's going in for a hernia operation.

I was going to take the mick out of Ashok for tabling a Commons motion praising the visit of the Indian soccer team to these shores even though the Indian-born MP actually supports the West Indies at cricket.

But ''Campaigning Kumar'', as he's known, has been putting on such a brave face ahead of his impending surgery, I'll let him off.

WE'RE not allowed to mention today's christening of baby Leo Blair in Sedgefield as it's a totally private family matter.

So instead, we'll focus on the deteriorating relations between daddy Blair and Billy Hague.

I don't suppose they were ever the best of chums off the pitch but it's obvious from the last few Prime Minister's Questions bouts that now it has become personal.

And at a Central Office drinkies session earlier this week, a ''source'' close to Mr Hague - very close, in fact - confirmed this impression.

The said source confided that our Tone just ''likes to be liked by everybody'' but when he sees you as a ''threat'', that's it. Handbags at the despatch box.

THIS ill-temper is obviously catching for there was a right old spat involving Giles Radice at yesterday's launch of the Commons' treasury committee report on the single currency.

The academically-minded Durham North MP, who chairs the committee, doesn't normally lose his rag. But euro-enthusiast Mr Radice - the closest thing in the Commons to an Albert Einstein lookalike - was provoked by nasty remarks from eurosceptic Tories.

Sir Teddy Taylor, the Conservative MP who clearly thinks Mephistopheles runs the European Central Bank, slagged off committee colleagues for staying in ''top-class hotels'' on the Continent while preparing the euro report.

Giles had had enough. ''I notice Teddy Taylor came with us and didn't seem to mind staying in them (hotels),'' barked Mr Radice. Ouch.

Harrogate and Knaresborough MP Phil Willis was chatting over dinner this week about his celebrated aversion to curry.

''This'll end up in a diary column,'' predicted Mr Willis to his fellow diners.

And so it has. The Liberal Democrat MP has never, ever - and I mean never, ever - eaten curry. Never touched it.

''Every one of my friends and family just adore it but I have never, ever tasted it,'' said the MP. It's not the hot spices but the ''colour'' that puts the Honourable Member right off, particularly the ''bright red'' colouring in some Indian food.

So I present a challenge from one of the newest curry restaurants in his constituency - Jinnah of Devonshire Place in Harrogate.

''Mr Willis is most welcome to come and try out our food, and owner Saleem Akhtar will be glad to look after him,'' a spokeswoman told me last night.

That'll set the MP up for his lightning visit to Delhi in September when he's flying in one day, delivering a speech the next and then flying home on the same night.

It's nothing to do with avoiding curry or the famed local belly. Turns out Mr Willis is worried that if he's out of the country too long, Tony Blair will declare a snap General Election and catch him napping.

l Just like the MPs, Week in Westminster will be taking a break for the summer and will return refreshed in the autumn.