MAKING her audience smile and interviewer squirm, Mo Mowlam stole the show for Swindon's Festival of Literature last night.

Appearing at the Wyvern Theatre, the ebullient former Northern Ireland Secretary displayed all her trademark honesty, sense of humour and refusal to accept stupid questions from men.

Mo's first jocular request was for a drop of whisky in her glass of mineral water. And by the end of her encounter with BBC Wiltshire Sound journalist James Harrison, she definitely deserved one.

His first mistake was associating Mo with champagne socialism and calling her quest for equality "idealistic."

"Oh it's going to be one of those boring radio interviews that gets on my nerves," she sighed.

Setting James straight, she said she was talking about basic human rights, dear, not "stupid equality." Waytogo Mo, chivvied the audience.

Buoyed by their unanimous support, she continued to assert her take on a host of issues, including Northern Ireland, drugs and the media, all of which are explained in her new book.

When asked to give herself a mark out of ten for her performance during the peace process, Mo dismissed it as a "daft, unhelpful question."

Maintaining her positive role in pushing the situation forward, she went on to criticise the press for posing the wrong questions and distorting her answers.

"You're exaggerating," she warned James as he probed the reasons for her exit from government. Unwilling to point the finger of political shame, Mo released a classic one-liner: "I'm going to burp now."

Her capacity to break tension is legendary. "I just can't be bothered to put my brain around them," she resolved and moved on to discuss her latest project integrated education.

"I always said I was going to leave government and pursue something new," she declared.

What James failed to grasp was that Mo is neither a woman who dwells on the past nor loves stabbing old colleagues in the back.

But Mo doesn't tar all journalists with the same sensationalising brush. "Most of the local ones are normal, healthy people," she admitted... leaving James to decide if that included him.