Mowlam blames aides for downfall

Mo Mowlam today claimed she was hounded out of the Cabinet by a powerful troika of Tony Blair's most senior aides.

She used her autobiography to lay bare the bitter vendettas and personal feuds which have dogged Labour since it came to power and saw her effectively dumped "like a bag of potatoes" from front-line politics.

Ms Mowlam, who despite her public popularity was removed from her post as Northern Ireland Secretary and given the "non-job" of Cabinet enforcer, laid the blame for her downfall as close as she dared to Mr Blair.

She directly accused his chief of staff Jonathan Powell and communications director Alastair Campbell of authorising briefings against her and claimed Peter Mandelson went behind her back to " campaign" for her Ulster job. Ms Mowlam, who had battled back from a brain tumour, eventually became so disillusioned she quit politics.

She said in her book Momentum, being serialised in the Daily Mail: "I still cannot bring myself to think Tony Blair okayed it all." However, she directly accused the Prime Minister of breaking a promise not to make her his Cabinet enforcer.

She also alleged she was offered the job of Health Secretary, a claim denied by Downing Street. She claimed the tide started to turn against her after Mr Blair mentioned her name in his 1998 Labour conference speech and the audience gave her a spontaneous standing ovation. This delayed his speech and embarrassed him, she added, leading those around him to begin briefing against her.

"This was the point my relationship with Tony began to get rocky," she said. The following year she was "furious" to learn that Mr Mandelson was using the media in a bid to replace her in Northern Ireland and have her shunted off to the Cabinet Office.

She claimed: "It gradually became clear to me I was being treated as a girlie - a popular female commodity who would be useful with voters. I was no longer a comrade-in-arms fighting for the same causes. In fact I was beginning to feel like a bag of potatoes that they just wanted to dump somewhere so Peter Mandelson could go to Northern Ireland."

The last straw, she claimed, was a move to get her to stand against Ken Livingstone as Labour candidate for Mayor of London. Around this time, she said, "the most aggressive and vicious off-the-record briefing against me began". One report claimed she was on the verge of a nervous breakdown.