HE'S best known these days for his cosy chats with Michael Portillo on the BBC's This Week tongue-in-cheek political show on a Thursday night.

But Labour's former cabinet minister Alan Johnson did not pull his punches when he visited Dudley's Priory Park Boxing Club on the election trail with Dudley North candidate Ian Austin - claiming the Tories were hitting below the belt by "personal" point scoring against Ed Miliband.

The ex-Home Secretary and Health Secretary - himself up for election in Kingston-upon-Hull West and Hessie - did a walkabout with Mr Austin, chatting to traders and shoppers in Dudley town centre today.

After a tuna sandwich and pot of tea at the Café Grande in Stone Street, he dropped in on the Priory Road boxing club, which is undergoing a £250,000 extension, boosted by a £50,000 Sports England grant that Mr Austin helped to win.

There he met club chairman and head coach Paul Gough and 18-year-old Paige Dudley, of New John Street, Halesowen, who has slimmed down by seven stone since starting boxing at the club 18 months ago.

Now weighing just ten stone, on Saturday she won her first competitive fight at an event in Lincolnshire, competing in the lightweight category.

Mr Johnson, who used to box as a child, described the club, which helps to keep local youngsters off the streets and has a waiting list to join, as "brilliant".

But he hit out at the Conservatives, saying the election was "more personal" than most he could remember.

He referred to comments made by David Cameron about Ed Miliband and defence secretary Michael Fallon's claim that Labour's top man had stabbed his brother David in the back during their party leadership tangle and now wanted to do the same to Britain.

"Cameron is very good at scoring points - he does it in PMQs (Prime Minister's Questions)," said Mr Johnson.

"He recently used the word 'despicable' about Ed Miliband - and the dictionary definition of that is vile.

"What he's trying to do is to use the form of approach at PMQs in his campaign. It works in that bear pit - and it doesn't work elsewhere.

"British people don't like that kind of politics. They've gone too far."