UK family visit part of PM's holiday trip

Prime Minister Helen Clark has revealed a snippet or two about her Christmas holiday plans.

Asked yesterday about what she hoped to get up to, she said she would be "exercising my right to the three-week statutory minimum" and that she would be overseas.

Prompted further, she said her 87-year-old father-in-law in Britain was in poor health and that would be "one of the places" she would go.

Her previous holidays have included climbing Mt Kilimanjaro in Tanzania and getting most of the way up Argentina's Mt Aconcagua - trips revealed only after the events.