Travelling with the world's most famous hot-air balloonist can be a risky business, but Mo Mowlam showed no sign of nerves as she joined Richard Branson for a walkabout in Belfast yesterday. It started well enough for the Northern Secretary, as she chatted with admirers outside a travel agency called Going Places ("Deal of the week: Crete £286").
But stopping for a chat with shoppers at a fruit stall, she was suddenly ambushed by a man clutching a Penguin classic and a lifelong grievance. A 43-year-old Catholic born of a mixed marriage, he said he had four A-level grade As and had been to Trinity and Cambridge. "So how come all my Protestant friends have good jobs and I've been washing dishes for the last 10 years?"
Dr Mowlam attempted an answer, but the man wasn't finished. Many of his family had served in the armed forces, but it made no difference because he was Catholic. So she tried again, but he wasn't appeased. "You're not listening," she complained, and sure enough, he wasn't. "It's a dump. This country's rotten to the core," he snapped, and was gone.
At least when the Mo campaign dropped into the Belfast Institute for Further and Higher Education, the pressure switched to her travelling companion. Virgin's investment in a post-agreement Northern Ireland was Mr Branson's theme of the day, so one of the questions was inevitable.
"Why can't students get discounts on your aeroplanes?" asked one young woman. Branson laughed and told her: "You'll go far".
Whether she would go far by Virgin Airlines, he didn't say. "If I offered you a flight discount now, I'd be accused of bribing you for your vote."
