Farewells to Mo Mowlam

This LINK takes you to a selction of tributes to Mo Mowlam who passed on yesterday.

At least two blogs here have gone missing in the last week including my own tribute to Mo yesterday morning. Her passing was not unexpected (she had been seriously ill for some weeks and unwell for some years) but coming so soon after that of her colleague Robin Cook it seems all the more pertinent. She will be remembered most for her relaxed and open-minded attitude to politics and iniating the Northern Ireland peace process in a way that only she could have done. She was also brave enough top publicly admit smoking marijuana and most famously said that unlike Bill Clinton, she did inhale. Her sense of humour and fondness for life remained undiminished by rise to official office and her later ostracisation by the Blair government was something she accepted without obviously bitterness.

Her demise reminds us just how far the political arena has changed since the pioneering days of the new labour project and the present government's betrayal of its roots. She will be sorely missed by both her fellow parliamentarians (most of them) and a grateful public alike.

Later.