Mo Mowlam Book

Marjorie "Mo" Mowlam is arguably Britain's best-loved politician--though her public popularity is highly unusual for someone holding a cabinet position. In this biography, unauthorised but apparently written with Mowlam's approval--"she allowed me to talk to anybody who was prepared to spare me the time"--seasoned journalist Julia Langdon attributes Mowlam's undoubted ability to interact to her exuberant and "driven" personality, and also to a "desperate insecurity which is assuaged by feeling that she is useful to other people". Through interviews with friends and family, Langdon paints a portrait of the high achiever with a secret family misery (her father was an alcoholic), the student activist whose tutors thought she would be the first female prime minister, the academic who spent years in the US and the tireless Labour party campaigner and administrator who became MP for Redcar at the age of 37 in 1987, and then rose under Tony Blair's leadership to become Secretary of State for Northern Ireland 10 years later. It was a position that would lead to much acclaim--for her charismatic style of politics, her fortitude in the wake of the discovery of a brain tumour--benign, but necessitating debilitating treatment--and, above all, for her commitment to her role, which was instrumental in bringing about the Good Friday Agreement of April 1998. Yet the halting nature of that "imperfect peace", plus the standing ovation she received in the middle of Tony Blair's keynote speech at the next Labour Party Conference meant that Mowlam's cabinet future appeared uncertain (a friend is quoted as saying to her after this incident, "Don't you realise they're going to come gunning for you?"), and in October 1999 she was demoted to the position of cabinet "Enforcer", with Peter Mandelson taking over in Ulster. Indecisive (until it was too late) about whether she wanted to be put forward as the Labour candidate for London Mayor, Mowlam surprisingly, but perhaps inevitably, announced her intention to step down as an MP in early September 2000. This seemingly sudden decision had apparently been decided many months earlier, in fact "within weeks" of Mowlam "losing her post as Secretary of State for Northern Ireland". She did not immediately resign because of her "profound loyalty to the Labour Party". Langdon's account of Mowlam's rise--and fall--in politics depicts a determined, difficult yet immensely likeable character. The great anticipation is, however, the account Mo Mowlam herself might write of her time with New Labour.--Kate WeaverRead More