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Child's Play for Sinn Fein

• Mark Devenport
• 28 Feb 07, 04:54 PM

Putting a power sharing government together might not be child's play, but that did not stop Sinn Fein picking Belfast's W5 activity centre for today's manifesto launch. The boardroom provides a magnificent view across the Lagan, but it's not the most spacious of venues, so us hacks were fairly well crammed in alongside the Sinn Fein candidates.

Gerry Adams, not for the first time, did not want to get too drawn in to the practicality of his party's coalition with Ian Paisley. He said he wasn't there to answer for the DUP but they should accept the outcome of the election they had demanded.

As already pointed out in this blog he wants a 拢10 billion peace dividend. Sinn Fein also want "tax varying powers". Does anyone think they intend to vary them in a downwards direction?

The Sinn Fein President acknowledged that some resented his policy switch on policing but argued that they were in the minority. He hoped most republicans would recognise how much they had in common with his party.

And then we all tripped, rather incongruously, down the musical stairs at W5 on our way to a photo shoot outside. After March 7th will we find ourselves following a yellow brick road?

A couple of print colleagues told me that Ian Paisley said earlier in the day in Bangor that March 26th was Peter Hain's dream, which had turned into a nightmare and which wasn't going to happen... It sounded pretty definitive until they ran through all the clarifications he added afterwards, which didn't rule out the deal provided he gets his delivery.