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 decision to give an indicative date for a return is a mistake. It degrades the process. It degrades human life.

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

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!

We had the IRA ceasefire in August 1994 and a lot of people assumed that a deal had been done - which wasn't right.

We had a completely deniable exchange of papers - in the winter before the 1997 election - with [Tony] Blair, setting out what we thought were the realistic parameters for a solution: and we were getting reasonable responses back from him. That's what led to Blair's visit to Belfast on May 16, 1997 - two weeks after he became Prime Minister and his first official visit outside London.

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'.