In 1987 she became the British Labour party's Member of Parliament for Redcar in the North of England, having been selected to stand as MP by a margin of one vote. At this time the Labour Party was in opposition and Margaret Thatcher was Prime Minister. In 1994 Mowlam became the Shadow Secretary of State for Northern Ireland. When in May 1997 Labour won the national election, Tony Blair, the new Prime Minister, appointed Mowlam as the new Secretary of State for Northern Ireland - the first woman in this key post.

Hear Mowlam's speech on her first day

 "All I can do is bring people together, all I can do is create a situation to encourage people to work together, and in the end it's the people of Northern Ireland and the leaders of the political parties that will make the decisions, but I can create the parameters to help achieve that."

Although Mowlam didn't think that her approach was different because she was a woman, it was seen as very distinct from that of the previous Secretary for Northern Ireland, Patrick Mayhew of the Conservative Party. The impression Mowlam gave was of someone with the common touch. She seemed to embrace everyone she met and to treat all people equally. At the same time, she was also very tough - Neil Kinnock described her as "tungsten tough" - tungsten is a kind of metal used for bullets.

"I brought a very different character from the characters that had been there before and I think it was probably more my character, my directness, my honesty, my saying as I see it which probably was as important to what I brought to the process as my gender. But there's no doubt that my gender helped in some situations but in others it was a handicap ... some of the men didn't like women in positions of power."