Momentum by Mo Mowlam, (Hodder & Stoughton, £20)

SHE won the public's admiration for her blunt, unaffected ways. To some she was Saint Mo, but in her book she takes on the mantel of Mo the Avenger.

She is a woman with a reputation for speaking her mind who won the nation's hearts after she successfully battled a brain tumour. A year and a half ago, she came top in a poll in which people were asked who they would most like to be the next Prime Minister.

Now, a year after quitting politics, she has penned words that could be a hatchet blow to Tony Blair's New Labour government.

In her book, the former Northern Ireland Secretary, who was re-shuffled to what has been described as a "non-job" as Cabinet Office Minister before she decided to leave Parliament altogether, paints herself as the unwitting victim of her own party's spin.

She also describes an unhappy Cabinet, where ministers are sometimes not consulted about decisions and Tony Blair has both an "attitude of how he knows best" and an ill-concealed, frosty relationship with the Chancellor, Gordon Brown.

Still, Mowlam has plenty to say and clearly feels aggrieved about the way she was treated during her later months as a minister.

Mowlam also gives an eye-opening description of Cabinet meetings. "Not a lot happened, she says. "There wasn't that much discussion of issues. Tony talked, Gordon talked and rarely did anybody else."

Mowlam has also written in her book that Blair and Brown are not the best of friends. Mowlam has critical words too for Peter Mandelson, the man who replaced her as Northern Ireland Secretary.

Although she accepts Number 10 won't like some of the contents of her book, which also deals in detail with her time in Northern Ireland, Mowlam insists she was not after revenge.

Saint Mo may have been sinned against but this feisty lady is still fighting.

Noreen Barr