She joined in the fun, stirring the controversy in the Tory party. There was method in her spontaneity.Mowlam's political guile was most tested in the challenging terrain of Northern Ireland. For several years she was shadow Northern Ireland Secretary and had grasped the complex nuances of the stuttering peace process by the time Labour came to power. In post she helped to re-energise the process, winning the trust of leading nationalist politicians. On the day after Labour's election win Mowlam toured Belfast city centre and was greeted as a political hero rather than a new minister starting out on a long and tortuous road.
Once she had settled in the thorny post she dared to challenge several taboos. These included her symbolic and ground- breaking visit to the Maze prison.From the beginning, her style unnerved Unionists who were wary of her rapport with nationalists. Some of them could not cope with the fact that they were dealing with the first female Northern Ireland Secretary, especially one as tactile as Mowlam. In an interview for me in the autumn of 1997, she said: "I give the Unionists a hug when I meet them and I think some of them think I also go around hugging terrorists. Well, let me state categorically that I have never knowingly hugged a terrorist in my life."But Mowlam never accepted a harsh political fact. Northern Ireland secretaries have a limited life span if they are not trusted by one side.
By the summer of 1999 she had more than outlived her usefulness in that particular role and was becoming part of the problem She did not go quietly. Before the much-heralded reshuffle, she publicly declared she was going on holiday and hoped to return in the same post Blair still moved her. Mowlam was demoted to the Cabinet Office, a non-job that tended to finish political careers. She never forgave Blair and their relationship was tense for the rest of her career. Within months of starting her new job, she admitted publicly in a BBC interview that she was not enjoying the post. She never enjoyed political life again.Two myths surfaced about Mowlam during her final period as a minister.