Summit - No holiday
|19:02 UK time, Monday, 16 July 2007
Well, the picture might look like Mark Devenport but it is his faithful colleague Martina Purdy who is blogging, while Mark is taking a well-deserved holiday. As for the BIC summit today, it might have looked like a relaxed day out, but my sources tell me it was anything but - especially at Sunday's rehearsal. Tensions were rife - and for once it wasn't our politicians who were niggling. It seems there was quite a bit of squabbling about who was doing what and where. One Stormont inside put it down to tensions between the Labour government and the regions (read Scotland and Wales.) At one point, the plan was that the BIC "family portrait" would have the Prime Minister, and the Taoiseach alongside Ian Paisley and Martin McGuinness with the other regional ministers tucked in the back. But the Scots said a big "naaay" to that. And I'm told two feisty Scottish women officials insisted that the newly elected First Minister of Scotland was not taking any back seats. It was all worked out in another historic compromise. So that's why the historic portrait sees Alex Salmond and the Welsh Deputy First Minister smiling in the front row on the steps of the Great Hall alongisde Gordon Brown, Bertie Ahern and our own fair ministers. As Ian Paisley would say, peace perfect peace!
I'm 
