I had read an early profile of [Tony] Blair by Frank Millar in which he said that Blair was very keen on the 'consent principle'.

I knew what I had to do as party leader had to be sensible and relate to the real situation we were in, rather than a situation you would like to have.

There was a process in place at that time - the Downing Street Declaration of December 1993 - which set out the terms and conditions under which people who had been involved in paramilitary activity could come into the political process.

I had read an early profile of [Tony] Blair by Frank Millar in which he said that Blair was very keen on the 'consent principle'.

The one thing I can assure you is that I'm not going to do a Prescott.

It wasn't too difficult to see that [Ian] Paisley would never do anything positive.

During the 1996 Forum election my election agent, John Dobson, told me that at some stage down the line we were going to have to talk to the IRA and that I was the man to do it. And my reaction was not printable!