IN ONE way or another, MP Mo Mowlam has always been able to turn heads.

Whether it is photographs of when she was a beautiful young student, or when she took off her wig at an important meeting, she has an uncanny ability to make almost everyone love her.

It is perhaps this reason why hardly an eyebrow was raised when she admitted not only to smoking cannabis while studying at Durham University, but also to inhaling the drug.

A new biography of the Cabinet Office Minister, who rocked Westminster last week by announcing she is to quit politics after the General Election, contains extraordinary allegations about both her political and private lives.

Dr Mowlam has apparently read but not changed any of biographer Julia Langdon's words.

The MP for Redcar has always been Labour's nearest thing to a film star and is seemingly loved by everybody she comes across, from rank and file party supporters in her own seaside constituency to the world's most-powerful man, Bill Clinton, who once described her as one of the most remarkable women he had ever met.

Ms Langdon said Dr Mowlam's popularity stems from the fact that, unlike many of her New Labour colleagues, she has never changed her ways.

Photographs of her in her student days reveal a beautiful young woman with long slim legs, blonde hair and a flawless complexion.

And, even after she lost all her hair and put on weight during her courageous battle against a brain tumour before the last General Election, she still had a twinkle in her eye.

The biography says that when it come to relationships, in Dr Mowlam's own words, it has all been 'spectacularly untidy.'

Her first great love was Martin Pumphrey, whom she met while at Durham University. She followed him to America but they split after seven years together.

Dr Mowlam stayed in the country and worked as a college lecturer in Florida, where she fell for Dan Sammons. He drowned while Dr Mowlam was in England. Further relationships followed over the years, before she met her present husband, banker Jon Norton.

At 50 Dr Mowlam still has a large slice of her working life in front of her and is not expected to take a back seat for long.

She has already been touted for a UN post and a seat in the House of Lords, but an autobiography appears the most likely and logical next step. In more ways than one, it is likely to cause quite a stir.

No one at Dr Mowlam's office could be contacted for comment