Mo Mowlam's health 'deteriorating'

[emad]

Mo Mowlam's health 'deteriorating'
18 August 2005

The condition of the critically-ill former Northern Ireland Secretary Mo Mowlam has deteriorated.

The former Redcar MP, 55, was transferred from hospital to a hospice last week.

She had suffered a brain tumour, and her increasingly frail appearance has prompted fresh fears for her health in recent months.

She is being cared for at the Pilgrim Hospice in Canterbury.

http://www.thisislondon.com/news/articles/PA_NEWA19042051124358711A0000?source=PA%20Feed

[Greeby]

1. I thought so

When they said she'd gone to the hospice, I didn't figure it'd be long :cry:

[non sociopath skin]

2. Not true in every case, Greeby. However, the circumstances in Mo's case ..

... seemed to suggest that her life was drawing to a close.

My thoughts are with her and her family at this difficult time.

The Skin

[ikri]

3. Dammit!

First Cook now it looks like Mo Mowlam too :(

Will we be left with any politician who can actually inspire people with their actions and beliefs?

[emad]

4. Hope these two are not your role models! So many Thatcher-era

cold war plants reeled at the horror of Iraq and Shrub/Poodle's smoke n' mirrors trick that they virtually erased all their personal past peccadilloes at a stroke.

Cook & Mowlam scored solid points on Iraq WMD fiasco, as did Clare Short. But that merely raised their profiles up a minute notch.

[non sociopath skin]

8. Hi, Mr. Perfect....

... Getting ready to stomp on Mo's grave the way you did on Robin's?

So who are your role models? Apart from yourself, of course?

The Skin

[emad]

17. Well for a start I ain't a MR but a MRS. Or rather, a Dame.

My current top US Democrat hero is Eliot Spitzer, who is even-pegged with Bob Morgenthau. As a former lawyer I have nothing but the utmost respect and admiration for these two fine lawmen.

Of those who are dead, Harry S Truman was a great personal No1, as was his wife Elizabeth 'Bessie' Wallace Truman. Followed by the late, great General John Merryman, relentless Nazi-catcher and upholder of the rule of law during the cold war years.

When I worked as an investigative journo/writer/author/pulisher and UK newspaper proprietor my brief was always debunking humbuggery wherever and whenever.

Politicians have provided a rich seam for those reporters not impressed by spin. My UK TV documentaries did not focus just on them, though.

General Pinochet, Robert Maxwell, Anthony Blunt, Mark Thatcher, Jonathan Aitken, the Bin-Abdel-Aziz al-Saud family, and the Kray brothers were among the broadcast work accredited to me during the last 25 years.

[...of J.Temperance]

18. Ronnie and Reggie

Aw, they shouldn't be lumped in with Pinochet, Maxwell, Blunt, Thatcher, Aitken and the Bin-Abdel-Aziz al-Saud family.

The Krays, they did a lot for the poor in the East End, gave a lot to charity and whatnot. So there was just as much good from them as bad, the way I see it.

[emad]

22. Ronnie and Reggie were deeply implicated in shenanigans

that paved the way for Robert Maxwell to slime into power.

Minor crooks by comparison to him they nevertheless bankrolled the same bent London cops that rose through the ranks and prevented the capture of the Brinks Matt gang that stole £26million of bullion in the autumn of '83. Among other achievements: the gagging of the whole Suzy Lamplugh 'disappearance' fiasco and, most recently, the disappearance of the body of murder victim Grazia Morton - whose architect ex-husband has just been convicted of killing.

[...of J.Temperance]

23. It's as

Old as time that. The underworld buying off bent coppers. The Adams brothers in London, probably a quarter of the Met are on the payroll. The McGovern's in Glasgow the same. Paul McGovern did a few years for murder, then he got out and now Strathclyde Police go and give him a contract for his security firm.

I must say, as a side point, I've always wondered what the heck happened regarding Suzy Lamplugh.

You weren't involved in that newish documentary last year about Lord Lucan were you?

[emad]

25. No. But in Panorama documentary about Lucan circa 1977 which

said one line of police enquiry that was ignored was Lucan's protracted battle with his neighbors near Henley on Thames, Oxon (Nettlebed??). And his membership of child sex clubs linked to the revived Hellfire Club about which others knew and may have used to put pressure on him rehis extensive gambling debts.

Lucan had a country cottage next door to the family of the late Ian Fleming (James Bond author) and the two families were constantly at loggerheads about a part-wall dispute and the small amount of garden it occupied. I believe this dispute was eventually settled in the UK law courts last month.

Fleming once had a violent punch-up with Lucan who then filed grevious bodily harm charges. But soon withdrew saying it was all a misunderstanting.....

LAMPLUGH: Ex-Metropolitan Police Assistant Commisioner Sir John Grieve, QPM, could have busted the organised crime gang responsible but didn't. His former boss, Sir Robert Mark (Met Commissioner under Thatcher) made it virtually impossible for any straight, honest cop to do the biz.

[...of J.Temperance]

28. So

Why on earth was organised crime involved in the disappearance of Suzy Lamplugh? Is she dead or was she sold into prostitution abroad or something?

That Lucan stuff is fascinating, I've always been interested in the Lord Lucan case and the death of Roberto Calvi, so I'll look forward to watching that new documentary regarding him. I hope it really touches on the P2/Licio Gelli/Paul Marcinkus angle. I think that bunch was also involved in the kidnap and murder of Aldo Moro, although I might have to recheck that to see if I've got that accurate.

Gosh, you seem to have a fab job, it must be thrillingly interesting.

[emad]

42. "Suzy Lamplugh" was Maria Gelli, daughter of Cuban-born

Russian conman and sometime Provisional IRA fundraiser Henry Gelli.

In the mid 1980s she worked as an 'estate agent' in Hampstead running a small time agency called Suzylets.

But she was fronting a huge property fraud being run by local estate agents, developers, builders, solicitors and dodgy financiers who had conned Midland Bank - now HSBC - out of some £25 million and were about to face the chop. But she was also reporting directly to Jeffrey Archer who was the lynchpin between Margaret Thatcher and criminal gangs hired as mercenaries by MI5 and MI6 to execute/assasinate all those blocking her meteoric rise to political power in the 1970s.

Lamplugh's business financier was Robert Maxwell's son Kevin who was involved in the real estate scam, which was heavily over extended and on the verge of bankruptcy in 1985 and early 1986.

Lamplugh was on the verge of finalising a fraud involving false property deeds that would have netted the gang over £200 million in assets.

She was assasinated in Fulham by a gangster in Maxwell's pocket.

An article about all this appeared in the Times in October 1990 just after the Met had posted a second appeal for information following an elaborate hoax article published in the Daily Mail in September 1986. Since then the cops have played down the story about the IRA and Robert Maxwell - mostly on Thatcher's orders.

Last September (23rd I think) under the Freedom of Information Act the BBC ran a story saying that it was the Tory Administration's Malcolm Rifkind who stopped any serious investigation of Robert Maxwell's untimely demise in the Med - just as they had consistently blocked any publication of his criminal record during the DTI enquiry into his business practices.

A good book about Maxwell's shenanigans is reveiwed here:
http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/allnews/page.cfm?objectid=12419168&method=full&siteid=50143

[...of J.Temperance]

43. Gosh

My heads in a spin after reading that. I might get that Maxwell book. A lot of these people, who we think we know, they just turn out to all be so sick and warped. Of course, I'm NOT surprised that Archer was involved in the Suzy Lamplugh/Maria Gelli thing.

[Benbow]

33. I went to the same school as the Fleming girls

I think it was the same family.

[lockdown]

34. Do you know

the Forsyths? I met them last winter in Mustique, charming people.

[Benbow]

35. You're having a larf, aren't you?

[lockdown]

37. You think?

:rofl:

[...of J.Temperance]

38. I thought you'd died

Or had an accident. I've got a feeling that you've got an undercover job.

[Anarcho-Socialist]

19. Have any of your documentaries been shown recently?

I'd like to see them. Although I know that answering the question has privacy implications for you. (but I like documentaries :) )

[emad]

21. Yes, fairly recently. But a couple are coming up on Channel 4

and BBC2 later this autumn.

One on Roberto Calvi which was shelved eighteen months ago because the City of London cops said the whole God's Banker murder trial was sub judice and the Italians were going to make arrests.

Another one on the UK burial mound of Boudicca queen of the Iceni.

And yet another on Leonardo da Vinci's other Mona Lisa paintings - which have never been exhibited in public.

[non sociopath skin]

20. Sorry, Dame Perfect.

Yes, I guess that Robin and Mo couldn't be compared to Harry S. Truman.

Good.

The Skin

[...of J.Temperance]

24. When you say you're a Dame

Are you literally meaning a Dame of the British Empire, such as Dame Maggie Smith and Dame Stella Rimmington?

Or am I dim :shrug:

[emad]

26. GCB and GCMG.

Not DBE.

[...of J.Temperance]

29. Oh

Okay, because I've been racking my brain thinking:

"A Dame that makes documentaries. Who can this be?"

[non sociopath skin]

30. NOT????

http://www.nationmaster.com/encyclopedia/Adrienne-Clarkson

If so, ma'am, I do most 'umbly beg yer 'ighness's pardon and crave 'er indulgence, me bein' but a poor unlettered pleb an' 'at ...:hurts:

The Skin

[...of J.Temperance]

31. She's a

Dame Grand Cross of the Order.

Irish, now Cockney, you're cute:)

[emad]

40. NOT.

and no more comment.

[...of J.Temperance]

44. Okay

We're happy knowing that we have a celebrity here, that's enough for us :)

[Benbow]

32. I feel that I ought to know who you are

All those clues. Perhaps I can work it out by Googling.

[Benbow]

36. Hmmn. Narrowed it down to two but going to bed now.

Many red herrings later - did you know that Dame Edna describes herself as an "investigative journalist" as well as housewife superstar? :-)

[emad]

41. Barry Humphreys used to be a nieghbor of mine.

But he's the wrong dress size - at least 60lb bigger than me!

[...of J.Temperance]

39. It's been

Doing my head in since she mentioned it. A definate AARRGGHH!! moment since then. I should know who she is and I don't.

[Anarcho-Socialist]

5. I fear we're going to lose her

This is awful :(

[...of J.Temperance]

6. I remember

When Mo Mowlam was NI Secretary, Blair HATED her because she was MORE popular than him and he treated her like dirt, I think it might have been one of the reasons she left Parliament.

President Clinton came to Britain, and they were going to talk NI and Mo said that Blair deliberately kept her waiting outside the door whilst he and the President were inside. A further example of what a petty, vindictive, egotistical POS Blair is. AARRGGHH!! Come on Gordon, we NEED you!

I feel VERY bad about Mo Mowlam, we are going to lose her you're right, she's not in the hospice to get better. I just hope that when the time arrives for her, it's as peaceful as it can be.

I know I'm going to cry when she goes :cry:

Robin and now Mo, it really sucks we're losing the wrong ones.

[Anarcho-Socialist]

7. I think Blair will be gone in 12-24 months

There seems to be a general malaise effecting the UK.

The economy seems to be slowing down. The effects of the Iraq War are hitting home more than they did before. The gradual move of New Labour from the centre-left to the centre-right has alienated even the centre-ground. Blairism is out of ideas and lacks credibility.

If Blair hangs on until 2009, I think the Labour Party will crash and burn and the Tories will return to power as a result of a partially-sane new leader and a split of the centre-left votes between Labour, Lib Dems and Greens.

I hope that Labour Party strategists see this and convince Blair to go sooner.

[LeftishBrit]

9. Oh hell...

So sorry to hear this....

I am glad that they are respecting her wishes. But it's so sad.

[...of J.Temperance]

10. I really hope so

But I wish he'd go now.

I think if Blair is still in in 2009 and the Tories have chosen David Cameron, then they may very well get in. I can't see the general voting public going for David Davis as PM.

[non sociopath skin]

11. I have no illusions about Gordon Brown but his eulogy for Robin Cook ...

.. reminded me just how far outside the Democratic Socialist box Blair is.

Let's work for some semblance of normal politics, here.

The Skin

[Anarcho-Socialist]

12. I'm hoping for something approaching normalcy

from a Gordon Brown premiership. Anything extra I will consider a bonus.

[D-Notice]

13. What do you mean

by "normalcy"?

Not being the Tories?

Not being a bunch of authoritarian bastards?

[Anarcho-Socialist]

15. Exactly n/t

[Taxloss]

14. The BBC is reporting that she has died.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/4126986.stm

RIP Mo.

[Anarcho-Socialist]

16. Oh no

:(

[Kicked in the Taco]

27. This sucks, why do we have to lose the good ones?

RIP Mo