Ask Not What Mo Mowlam has Done For Northern Ireland But What Northern Ireland has done For Her

One man went to Mo, and quoted Hot House Flowers. Don t go. Not while The Sun is shining.
It was The Sun wot said it: Don t go, Mo . Which maybe means that that s the consensus among commoners, The Sun being respected in the trade for this only: that it has its finger on the pulse of plain punterdom.
It s clear Mr. Tony badly wanted Mo to move. He would have liked the vast popularity Mo has gathered in the North to be put at the disposal of his party elsewhere. If Mo could work the magic she s weaved in Northern Ireland, Labour voters perturbed at the party following a Tory agenda might warm to the government again.
Mo s popularity is the awe of the political age. When she walked onto the platform at the last Labour Party conference, delegates erupted instantly in cheering as they jack-knifed to their feet in the middle of Mr. Tony s speech. Opinion polls confirm her sky-high rating. In the most recent survey, 87% of respondents reckoned she was doing a good or a very good job. The late Nicolae Ceaucescu rarely reached such dizzy heights of approbation.
But, what has Mo done to deserve this adulation? What political ideas does she stand for? Can anybody recall a stance she took on any contentious issue prior to her arrival at Hillsborough Castle?
In The Guardian recently, Charlotte Raven recalled that Mo had been an ardent Kinnockite before Kinnock was given the bum s rush for chronic wind-baggery and general uselessness. Then she was the reputed right-hand woman of new leader, John Smith. And when Smith died of a heart attack, she was suddenly to be seen shoulder-to-shoulder with Mr. Tony.
A cynic might suspect she grasped onto party leaders the way Tarzan of the Apes reached for vine ropes, to swing across the landscape and land improbably on her feet in another high position.
Would things have been different if, instead of Mo, Jack Cunningham, Margaret Beckett, Peter Mandelson or any of the others mentioned at the time had been made Northern supremo in May 1997?
There d have been a difference in style, certainly. But substance?
In other areas of government, when things go pear-shaped the top guy takes the heat. As Labour s promised transport reforms hit gridlock, John Prescott becomes an object of scorn. Jack Straw took a proper pasting over the passport fiasco. David Blunkett is brought to book for the mess made of education. But in the North, all problems are put down to the impossible Irish even by some of the Irish themselves.
There s nothing new in this. The phenomenon has frequently been recorded of native peoples looking up to, even forming an affection for, a certain class of colonial administrator.
When disaster strikes, the resident British minister is swamped in sympathy for having had to work with such irrational people.
If something goes right, on the other hand, she s hailed as an inspirational genius for having succeeded even partially in the midst of Ulster madness.
Mo s popularity has more to do with perceptions of Northern Ireland than with any practical accomplishment.
Small wonder she herself pleaded it should be no go. The only fail-safe mechanism that works in the North is the one that fire-proofs the minister. This place has done wonders for that woman.
A group from Derry recently visited the tomb in Portugal of the Venerable Alexandrina da Costa, a famous mystic who, it is said, lived solely on Holy Communion for the 13 years prior to her death in 1955.
The spiritual director of the pilgrimage, Fr. Sean Conlon of the Carmelite monastry in Derry, celebrated mass at the Church of St. Eulalia, where the Venerable Alexandrina is buried.
This was the second official visit to Balasar by members of the Irish Alexandrina Society. Alexandrina da Casta became famous during her lifetime because it was believed that she experienced the passion of Jesus Christ every Friday. Her claim that she lived solely on the Eucharist was vigorously tested and monitored by medical authorities who eventually had to concede that no food was passing her lips yet her bodily functions remained normal.
Any doubts about the supernatural aspects of her life were put to rest when the Catholic Church officially recognised her sanctity in 1996 and declared her venerable .
This means the way is clear for her eventual beatification and canonisation.
All the above is taken, word-for-word, from a news story in Journal Extra (July 21st), published by the Derry Journal group.
My only query concerns the claim that her bodily functions remained normal . What did she shite? I might write to Jasmuhen for an answer. She should know. The phrase a light eater might have been coined for Jasmuhen. And Jasmuhen is coining it.
Jasmuhen is not a Catholic but a beatharian and an international metaphysician. She has not touched food since 1993, but is physically nourished by absorbing the universal life force of prana (liquid light) directly into her body . So it says in her promotional leaflet, The Creation of Paradise and Living on Light.
For the small sum of #125 (stg.) you, too, can attend one of Jasmuhen s weekend workshops where talk flows freely in each NOW moment, allowing the consciousness of the audience to move into the highest paradigm the group intends. Her practical information and techniques awaken in us solutions to our problems, while connecting and initiating us to our cosmic knighthood .
Readers availing of this offer will have an opportunity to become Masters in the game of Divine Alchemy and to live in a river of magic, grace and synchronicity .
The Freethinker magazine, ever alert for the practical implications of matters spiritual, has advised readers immediately to sell any shares they hold in Sainsbury s, Tesco or Mr. Kipling s Cakes. Obviously, once Jasmuhen s message spreads across the land, food sales will plummet like a jam doughnut down my throat.
The most important question which arises, as all regular readers will have spotted, is: does this mean that Jasmuhen, too, is a saint? Indeed a living (on light) saint, after the manner of the wrinkly thief Mother Teresa?
I have attempted to arrange a meeting with Fr. Sean Conlon to discuss these important matters. Alas, he is not available when I phone the Carmelite Monastry in Derry. At his dinner , apparently. n