Mo Mowlam

Mo attacks Brown - 06/01/03
Mo Mowlam has lashed out yet again at her former government colleagues yesterday, claiming Gordon Brown should be dumped as Chancellor.

Writing in the Observer yesterday, Ms Mowlam said: "On the issue of the euro we need to grow up. Whether or not we should join the euro is not an economic issue but a political one."

In one of her most outspoken attacks on New Labour, the ex-minister accused Mr Brown of being a "self-serving" politician who was "desperate for power".

Ms Mowlam said Tony Blair should axe Mr Brown as Chancellor to shore up his premiership and end the government's paralysis over the euro.

She suggested that Mr Brown could become a "second deputy prime minister" alongside John Prescott.

Mo Mowlan's vote is number one - 25/11/02
Mo Mowlan, the former Northern Ireland Secretary, was last night victorious as she had championed for Churchill to be named the Greatest Briton of all time in BBC 2's Great Britons poll.

Mo Mowlam, was delighted with the win. She said: "If Britain - its eccentricity, its big heartedness, its strength of character - has to be summed up in one person, it has to be Winston Churchill." She added "All that is great about being British is simply and poignantly defined by the image of the great man."

The outspoken Hackney resident Mowlam, ex-Secretary of State for Northern Ireland, grew up in a family of modest means in Coventry, England. She is known for her lively and direct style, her sometimes colorful language, and for a wide range of political interests that include education, trade, media and royal architecture.

Mowlam was educated at Coundon Court Comprehensive School in Coventry, Durham University and the University of Iowa, where she obtained a Ph. D. After graduation from graduate school, she worked in New York City and then as a research assistant for Tony Benn, a member of parliament. Later, she became a lecturer and administrator in adult education at Northern College in Barnsley.

A member of the Labour Party since 1969, she was first elected in 1987 to parliament and later became a member of the influential House of Commons Public Accounts Committee and the party's ruling National Executive committee. A few weeks before the general elections last May, the British tabloids showed unflattering pictures of a puffy Mowlam and accused her of bingeing on sweets. She responded that she was taking steroids for a brain tumor, and was quickly hailed as "Brave Mo." Mowlam lost most of her hair during the cancer treatments and wears a wig, which she finds uncomfortable. She often removes it during meetings and drops it on the table, saying, "It's such a bother."