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A stingy sleight of hand

• Mark Devenport
• 23 Mar 07, 02:16 PM

In keeping with this morning's gloom in government circles, Ian Paisley made a fairly uncompromising speech to the Federation of Small Business, accusing Gordon Brown of being stingy and unfair. He argued that the Chancellor's rolling together of Irish and British money amounted to a sleight of hand. Returning to the political doubts of many in his Assembly team the DUP leader demanded an improved sanctions mechanism.

That said, there was also a real sense of Ian Paisley relishing the prospect of becoming First Minister. At the very end of his speech he accused Downing Street of changing the time of his meeting, adding that when he got his hands on the levers of power he'd sort the timetabling out.

So is this hardballing in an attempt to extract more from Tony Blair or a reflection of a real wobble within the DUP ranks? By midnight tomorrow we should all be a bit wiser.

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Gloom descends

• Mark Devenport
• 23 Mar 07, 10:13 AM

Whenever a deadline approaches you always get peaks and troughs in expectation. This morning there's growing gloom in some government circles.

The DUP's party officers met late last night and communicated a message to Downing Street. As a result Tony Blair has cleared some space in his diary to see a DUP delegation this afternoon. It seems fair to assume the DUP is looking for more time or more concessions. The government insists it's standing by the deadline and has nothing more to give.

I'm off now to the Federation of Small Business Conference in Belfast's Waterfront hall to see what Ian Paisley has to say to the delegates.

Some readers have pointed out they are getting a mixture of the Northern Ireland, Scotland and Wales blogs. If you just want to follow the NI ones try this link

/blogs/election07/northern_ireland/

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