Mo's legacy lives on screen

POLITICIANS AND officials, no doubt, walked the grounds of Hillsborough Castle this week during the occasional break in yet another round of talks to break yet another impasse in the Northern Ireland peace process, writes MARK HENNESSY,London Editor

One might be forgiven for wondering how many of them remembered that the ashes of Mo Mowlam, secretary of state for Northern Ireland at the time of the Belfast Agreement, had been scattered at Hillsborough after her death from a brain tumour five years ago.

On Sunday, Channel 4 broadcasts Mo, a two-hour review of her life from the early 1990s, starring Julie Walters in the leading role in a performance that brings the rambunctious politician vividly to life.

So far in the UK, the focus on the programme has centred on her decision not to tell Tony Blair that her brain tumour was malignant, when she learned of it in 1997.

The action, much-criticised by some since, was typical of a woman who mixed humour, excruciating crudity and an often-foul tongue with a desperate passion to be a success in a male-dominated world of politics.

However, the issue of importance for some is whether the lack of inhibition, from which the repressed Ulster Unionist leader of the time, David Trimble, recoiled in horror, was Mowlam’s own character, or was a result of the tumour itself, which often changes the behaviour of its victims.

Former Northern Ireland minister Adam Ingrams, who served as her deputy in Stormont and who is fiercely loyal to her memory now, insists that Mowlam knew exactly when to be outrageous, and when not to be.

During one Police Federation conference, she “discombobulated” the top table by scratching her private parts in public, while on her first meeting with Sinn Féin’s Martin McGuinness and Gerry Adams she told both of them to “get the dicks off the table”. McGuinness seemed to have been taken aback, but amused, while Adams squirmed with embarrassment.

However, Mowlam, Ingrams says, could be on her best behaviour when that was necessary, too. In 1998, he accompanied her on a 12-city tour of the US with the glow of the Belfast Agreement still visible: “I was never conscious of her being crude or blokeish – she knew the American psychology, she knew how to stroke the Americans,” says Ingrams.

The film was written by Neil McKay after two years of research, which drew heavily on interviews with her husband, Jon, her family, political friends such as Ingrams, and “more shadowy figures such as Michael Stone”.

“People tended to speak to us pretty readily, because most people really liked her. Most people had stories, some of which were too rude and lewd to publish in print, many of them very funny. Only three people turned us down. They were Alastair Campbell, Peter Mandelson and, unsurprisingly, Rev Ian Paisley,” says McKay, though it is not surprising at all that Mandelson – who was never going to come out well of any story of the life of Mowlam given the role he played in her downfall, chose to keep his own counsel.

On reading the script, Walters immediately wanted the role, but then panicked that she would not be able to do it, before finally signing up to produce a performance that merits comparison with the best of her career.

Clearly, she likes Mowlam: “People thought they were getting straight talk from her, and she genuinely cared about ordinary folk. She genuinely did, and they knew that. And they’re so used to politicians out for their careers, so she just stuck out.

“She would say it like it is: “F*** it, yes!” and “No I don’t have any knickers on.” It was all that sort of talk. Nothing was out of bounds for her. And so I think people would feel safe, and some people would feel threatened by that,” said Walters.

Beautifully filmed, Moshows how much Mowlam loved the trappings of grandeur in Hillsborough, which she shared joyously with her husband and two step-children, along with the friends and relatives who passed through there during the two years.

Given the complexity of the events, the programme is able to give but an overview of the Belfast Agreement negotiations. The lack of recognition of the contribution made by the Irish Government may help the drama, but is poor history.

Drama is not history, however, and the viewer is more likely to carry away the memory of Mowlam’s decline into ill-health, and to her growing belief – one that, sadly, was only too often fuelled by her husband – that she had been shafted by Blair.

Ingrams did not believe it, then or now, even though Mowlam’s move out of favour did coincide with the famous Labour Party conference after the Belfast Agreement when the Labour grassroots cheered her to the rafters.

Never outshine your boss is a dictum true in all walks of life, not just in politics; but it is more than arguable that Blair had a point in moving her when he did at a time when the Unionists needed some tender soothing.

However, the reality is that Mowlam was sidelined long before she was ever replaced, partly because Blair wanted to be directly involved, and partly because the Northern parties had become addicted to the attractions of dealing directly “with No 10”.

Equally, however, it can be argued that Peter Mandelson, who managed in his time to become one of the most disliked Northern Ireland secretaries of state (a considerable achievement, given the competition) achieved little in his time after her.

Mowlam did believe that she had been betrayed and abandoned, and the final sections of film achingly captures her fears and anger as her grasp on life weakened, testing often those who most loved her.

Clearly, too, however, they love her still.

Mois on Channel 4 tomorrow at 9pm

The Politics Of Film Strong Performances In ‘mo’

Politicians are rarely made to look human in film, but Julie Walters has done so as she dominates every scene in Mo in one of the strongest performances of her career, unerringly capturing Mowlam’s voice and tone, along with hervibrancy and dishevelment.

Gary Lewis, best known for his role in Billy Elliot, plays her Stormont side-kick, Adam Ingrams, in a strong display that reflects Ingrams's tough Glaswegian roots, his fierce loyalty and, finally, his better judgement, about the reality of a life in politics.

David Haig, who has played Rudyard Kipling in My Boy Jack, is tremendous as Mowlam’s husband, Jon Norton portraying his love for Mowlam, but, also, his complete lack of political savvy. Norton, who co-operated with the programme’s researchers, has since died.