Profile: Unorthodox Mo

Ms Mowlam was no stranger to controversy in Northern Ireland

Mo Mowlam's assertion that Prime Minister Tony Blair's leadership style is more akin to a US president than a British premier is typical of the forthright style of the former cabinet minister.

It was that honesty that endeared Ms Mowlam to a spin-worn British electorate, but often left Downing Street running for cover.

Mo Mowlam

Born: 1949

Educated: Coundon Court Comprehensive School

Durham, Iowa universities

Employment: Lecturer, university administrator

Politics: Elected MP for Redcar - 1987

Secretary of State for Northern Ireland - 1997

Cabinet 'enforcer' - 1999

Retired from Westminster - 2001

When she retired from parliament and the government at the last election New Labour lost one of its most popular - if off-message - politicians.

If modern British politics is obsessed with slick delivery and image then Mo Mowlam stood in stark - and often refreshing - contrast to the norm.

Even her Conservative opponents regretted her political passing.

Her opposite number when she was at the Cabinet Office, Tory MP Andrew Lansley, said at the time that her decision to leave the Commons would make politics "the poorer".

'National treasure'

Once described as a "national treasure", she has regularly topped the polls for most popular political figure.

The universal admiration she won for her perseverance in working towards the Good Friday peace agreement in Northern Ireland in April 1998 endures.

For on top of the normal pressures, she was recovering from treatment for a brain tumour that left her without most of her hair and exhausted.

She had revealed her condition when, before the last election, the Daily Mail had asked why she "is so big"?

Her enthusiasm, lack of pretension and mateyness appealed to a public which yearned for an end to terrorism in Northern Ireland, and she won standing ovations and media awards in equal measure.

In 1998 she took a particular political risk by going inside the Maze Prison when it became clear that the peace process would only succeed with the backing of the prisoners. The loyalist UDA/UFF prisoners had previously withdrawn their support for the peace process.

She spoke to the prisoners face-to-face for 60 minutes, and two hours later the paramilitaries' political representatives announced they were being allowed to rejoin the talks.

Straight talking

Dr Mowlam told reporters: "I didn't negotiate, I didn't do a deal. If you want progress, you ain't going to get it if you don't have talks."

But the failure of the Northern Ireland parties to agree on implementation, and the release of IRA prisoners without a parallel surrender of arms, led to criticism by the Tories, and calls for her sacking by the Ulster Unionists, who lost confidence in her when she insisted the agreement had not been broken by the IRA.

Peace a personal triumph

She made the peace agreement a personal triumph, but reconciliation eluded her.

In 1999 she was replaced as Northern Ireland secretary by Peter Mandelson, and became the Cabinet "enforcer", seen by some as merely being a minister for the Today programme.

Her time in the cabinet was somewhat marred by a steady flow of reports that someone in a high place was "briefing against her".

There were also claims that Mr Blair was annoyed that the Labour Party conference had given her a standing ovation during his speech - a charge denied by premier.

Child of the Sixties

Yet the thing many people will remember about Mo Mowlam's political career is her unorthodoxy. She had not been scared to express an individual opinion.

She said she had not mean to offend the Royal Family by restating her belief that they should move out of Buckingham Palace, and saying she was "no great fan of the Royals".

And she became the first minister in charge of drugs policy to admit that she had tried illegal substances. "I haven't made any secret of being a child of the Sixties, never have," she said.

"I tried marijuana, I didn't like it particularly - and unlike President Clinton, I did inhale."