15:17 UK time, Monday, 28 November 2011
We are just two days into Peter Robinson's new era of "all of us" politics replacing the old "them and us" confrontations. So I thought I would dip into assembly proceedings to check how it's going.
There was the Employment and Learning Minister Stephen Farry on his feet. The minister was dealing with the sustainability of Northern Ireland's separate teacher training colleges - Stranmillis in south Belfast which trains teachers for the non-denominational state sector and St Mary's in west Belfast which caters for Catholic maintained schools.
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15:53 UK time, Friday, 25 November 2011
I've been looking through the BBC's archive in recent days, selecting a few clips of past reports for an anecdotal talk on Tuesday of next week, for which you can find more details here.
One clip I came across from an old Spotlight programme features the former direct rule minister Richard Needham talking about his mobile phone conversations being intercepted by paramilitaries.
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16:20 UK time, Wednesday, 23 November 2011
The initial response from the main UK parties to Sir Christopher Kelly's report on political finance has been lukewarm.
The main theme echoed by politicians is that the current economic climate makes it hard to conceive of any more taxpayers' money being diverted to fund political parties.
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18:20 UK time, Thursday, 17 November 2011
Sometimes at Stormont you just can't make it up. I was trying to record a TV broadcast in the Great Hall, analysing the content of the executive's draft programme for government, when I found myself distracted not by headline grabbing investment targets, but by a collection of would be beauty queens.
They turned out to be contestants in a "Miss Ulster" competition taking place in the assembly building.
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18:19 UK time, Tuesday, 8 November 2011
Remember the marathon talks at Hillsborough Castle in January and February 2010? Those of us who got chilblains hanging around outside won't forget them in a hurry.
Gordon Brown, Brian Cowen and their ministers worked around the clock to ensure the peace process didn't run off the rails.
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13:28 UK time, Monday, 7 November 2011
Last week my colleague Gareth Gordon had a bit of fun, analysing the unlikely rock anthems which political parties choose to play as their leaders stride towards their conference stages. If he had held off a few days he might have had another couple of ditties to add to his list.
Not so much Martin Solveig and Dragonette's "Hello", which greeted Alasdair McDonnell as he climbed the steps towards the SDLP's podium, but "Blinded By The Light", the old 70s Bruce Springsteen number taken to the Number One slot by Manfred Mann's Earth Band.
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20:13 UK time, Saturday, 5 November 2011
When Patsy McGlone decided to challenge Margaret Ritchie for the SDLP leadership, one of his first stops was the Glens of Antrim holiday home of the South Belfast MP Alasdair McDonnell.
Mr McGlone and Mr McDonnell were firm friends, who worked closely together when the South Belfast MP last stood unsuccessfully for his party's top job.
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16:21 UK time, Monday, 31 October 2011
Martina Purdy, standing in for Mark Devenport, looks at where the Irish presidential election result leaves Martin McGuinness.
"I don't think Martin has lost an election," said Sinn Fein's Conor Murphy, speaking on BBC Radio Ulster about the Republic of Ireland presidential election result. "Not that I can recall," he quickly added.
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16:08 UK time, Tuesday, 25 October 2011
Having spent much of the Irish Presidential campaign criticising the media for its trenchant questions about his IRA past, last night Martin McGuinness turned interrogator during RTE's final election debate.
Armed with information about the role played by independent candidate Sean Gallagher in a Fianna Fail fund raising event in Dundalk in July 2008, Mr McGuinness first elicited what sounded like a denial from the candidate, then warned him he was getting into "deep trouble".
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12:41 UK time, Friday, 21 October 2011
Two major international stories were featured on the BBC 10 o'clock news on Thursday night, both with a direct connection to Northern Ireland.
The grisly death of Muammar Gaddafi inevitably dominated, but the bulletin also found space for the Basque separatist Eta's "definitive cessation of violence".
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20:30 UK time, Wednesday, 12 October 2011
Owen Paterson found himself in the uncomfortable position in the Commons today of facing a number of politicians who have done his job, all telling him he is wrong and should think again.
Under discussion was the Government's decision to hold another review, rather than a full inquiry, into the murder of Pat Finucane.
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20:59 UK time, Tuesday, 4 October 2011
Many years ago a friend of mine, recently graduated in economics, went on a year's secondment to the finance ministry in the tiny Southern African mountain state of Lesotho.
He hadn't settled in long when his colleagues came to him with an interesting bit of work experience - the finance minister had to deliver his budget speech within the next week or so, they explained.
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14:17 UK time, Monday, 3 October 2011
Elsewhere on the BBC website, I've written a piece analysing Martin McGuinness's use of the term "murder" in an interview for the Independent.
If you didn't catch it on BBC Radio Ulster, you might want to listen to this weekend's Inside Politics interview with David Latimer, who continues to defend Martin McGuinness against his critics.
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13:36 UK time, Friday, 30 September 2011
In public meetings I am often asked why the media concentrates on "bad news".
I tend to respond that news, just like gossip, covers what is novel and different.
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16:07 UK time, Monday, 26 September 2011
Martin McGuinness accuses the media of being obsessed with his past. Glancing at this weekend's Dublin editions of the newspapers you can see why.
The Irish Mail on Sunday's front page was dominated by a picture of the body of IRA informer Frank Hegarty and an interview with Mr Hegarty's sisters accusing Mr McGuinness of involvement in luring their loved one to his death - a claim the Sinn Fein politician denies.
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07:40 UK time, Monday, 19 September 2011
Oscar Wilde wrote in his play An Ideal Husband that "to expect the unexpected shows a thoroughly modern intellect".
Clearly that's the kind of intellect required to keep track of Sinn Fein.
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12:43 UK time, Tuesday, 13 September 2011
So now the Boundary Review's proposals are out, it will be up to the politicians to try to persuade the commissioners to change their minds.
Some MPs and MLAs may be very satisfied by the new electoral map - others fear for their futures.
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11:08 UK time, Monday, 12 September 2011
If you persevered to the end of yesterday's "Inside Politics" on BBC Radio Ulster you would have heard my discussion with the BBC's election number cruncher Nicholas Whyte about the likely impact of tomorrow's provisional proposals for new Westminster boundaries.
As part of a UK wide plan to cut the number of MPs by 10%, a three strong Commission has been tasked with reducing the number of constituencies here from 18 to 16. The Commission has tight parameters to work with - each seat is meant to have a minimum population of 70,000 and a maximum of 80,000.
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13:20 UK time, Thursday, 8 September 2011
When I was at university back in the 1980s the Union was either a left-wing student organisation involved in boycotting South African goods and backing nuclear disarmament, or - given I went to Cambridge - a debating society where would-be MPs dressed up in dinner jackets and bow ties, trying to impress their peers and any celebrity visitors with the exuberance of their verbosity.
Now, in the new era of devolution, prospective students may pay more attention to the Union as a constitutional entity.
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13:16 UK time, Thursday, 8 September 2011
When I was at university back in the 1980s the Union was either a left-wing student organisation involved in boycotting South African goods and backing nuclear disarmament, or - given I went to Cambridge - a debating society where would-be MPs dressed up in dinner jackets and bow ties, trying to impress their peers and any celebrity visitors with the exuberance of their verbosity.
Now, in the new era of devolution, prospective students may pay more attention to the Union as a constitutional entity.
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