Playing Catch Up
I have been away for a couple of days, so I am playing catch up back in the office. So what happened whilst I was away? Well President McAleese spelt out what the Taoiseach has already said a few times - that a ground breaking visit by the Queen to Dublin is conditional on the devolution of justice. Unionists fulminated about what Danny Kennedy called an "unwelcome, unwise, clumsy and ill-judged" attempt to embroil the Queen in political controversy. I am simply perplexed. Are the DUP so desperate to see the Queen visit the Republic that this will act as a lever on them to do a deal? Has Peter Robinson been handed the right of veto over any future Royal visit?
I think someone will have to open up a back channel between the Aras, Buckingham Palace and DUP HQ to sort this one out. Which brings me, of course, to Jonathan Powell's book. There were strong rumours about a DUP-Sinn Fein back channel between the Leeds Castle talks and last year's deal. A colleague made good progress investigating it, but never got to the point where we felt there was evidence which would stand up in court. However now we have a Powell confirmation and a DUP denial. We also have an assertion that a journalist was involved. All I can say is "not me, guv."
Although I have been away, the main website has published a couple of pieces I prepared earlier, dealing with the tenth anniversary of the Good Friday Agreement.
Here is one on the contested nature of the anniversary.
Here is another about the fate of some of the agreement's brokers.
I'm 
