Surely not - such as???

First talking point - An Bord Snip - the Republic's cost cutting body - has put the spotlight on North-South bodies. And it appears that the tourism budget may be getting the snip. There's a proposal to save 12 million Euros from the Tourism Marketing Fund which is administered by the cross-border body, Tourism Ireland. It seems this is a matter for the finance ministers is Belfast and Dublin, as well as the Department of Enterprise Trade and Investment and presumably also the Executive and the North South Ministerial Council. So it could be a while before there's agreement on this....

Earlier this week, the Guardian reported Mrs Dodds' apparent annoyance at being seated next to the BNP's Andrew Brons. She is reported to have abandoned her seat in protest. Presumably no handshake took place.

With the BNP on one side and the Blairite Eurocrats on the other where is a new DUP MEP to turn to? Let's hope she doesn't rush into the Ladies and bump into Bairbre De Brun.

If we do have a close race and head into "hung parliament" territory, then Northern Ireland may come into its own. Back in February 1974, after all, it was the refusal of the Ulster Unionists to take the Conservative whip which deprived Ted Heath of his ability to form a government.

The Political Betting website chose July 12th as a suitable date to ruminate on Northern Ireland's likely impact on the General Election. Inevitably we shall spend a lot of time focussing on whether the DUP will hold on to all their 9 seats, whether the TUV or UCUNF can make any gains, what Lady Sylvia Hermon will do in North Down and how the battle between Sinn Fein and the SDLP might work out in South Down and elsewhere.

However if the arithmetic across the UK is close, local MPs, no matter which banner they stand under, could have a crucial part to play in the formation of a government (the obvious exception being the abstentionist Sinn Fein). In that case the period immediately after the election could turn out to be even more interesting than the campaign or the counts.

But the TV images of the trouble at the Ardoyne shops will be what sticks in the mind for the wider world.

Sinn Fein blamed the riots firmly on republican dissidents, naming Eirigi and the 32 County Sovereignty Movement as the people with questions to answer. Eirigi, in the shape of its General Secretary Breandán McCionnaith, has denied instigating the trouble. Mr McCionnaith claims PSNI officers "violently attacked" peaceful protestors and accuses Sinn Fein of "acting as apologists for state violence against the nationalist community".

This morning both Gerry Adams and Martin McGuinness challenged the Orange Order leadership to sit down face to face with Sinn Fein. The DUP's Nelson McCausland argues that's a red herring as talks did take place in North Belfast between marchers and Ardoyne residents.

However there are clearly anomalies in the current situation which has seen the Portadown Orange talking to Gerry Adams and on the brink of meeting Breandán McCionnaith (wearing his Garvaghy residents' hat), but the Order's central leadership continuing to stand on ceremony (despite a recent interview in which the Grandmaster Bobby Saulters acknowledged that you should "never say never").

After Peter Robinson's recent Garvaghy road diplomacy, a Sinn Fein Orange meeting could be seen as a symbolic step forward for dialogue. That said, given the alleged role of dissidents in yesterday's trouble, there has to be a question mark over Sinn Fein's ability to deliver calm on the streets. It would be ironic if, having held out so long against talking to republicans, the Orange leadership do so at a time when the people on the other side of the table are no longer able to guarantee a peaceful outcome.

That's a quote from "A Useful Fiction: Adventures in British Democracy" by Patrick Hannan, a journalist who has spent much of his career working for BBC Wales. And you can guess which corner of the UK he's talking about.

I started " A Useful Fiction" on the Belfast to Stranraer boat a couple of weeks ago and finished it after a flight to England this week, which seemed fitting for a book dealing with the changing nature of politics across the UK. Patrick engages in a tour d'horizon of contemporary events which includes his views on Prince Charles and the coverage of Madeline McCann's abduction. But what distinguishes this from other more metro centric tomes is his grasp of the complexity of the shifting sands of our constititional arrangements.

For example, his discussion of the tensions between the separate political classes of Welsh AMs and Welsh MPs will ring bells with anyone who has followed the local debate about double jobbing and the sometimes competitive relationship between MLAs and MPs.

He's also insightful on the limited status of the devolved nations given their lack of tax raising and gathering powers. At one point he likens them to pensioners drawing their allowances from a Westminster post office, "they have to allocate a large part of their income to the fundamentals of everyday life - food, power, accommodation - and with what's left over they can choose between cat food or a couple of pints of beer".

With the Lords review of the Barnett formula due in the coming week his analysis is worth checking out.

Patrick also quotes the Scottish journalist Ian Jack, writing in the Guardian back in 2008, as predicting that "if Cameron wins he will be the last Prime Minister of Great Britain (sic). If he goes two terms he will become the first prime minister of England. Our United semi-states will be no more. Then there really will be a new Canada in the north." (that last reference being to his vision of Scotland).

That made me ponder again on the Conservative Ulster Unionist arrangement, and the reasons why David Cameron is so keen to build bridgeheads anywhere outside England.

On the topic of the Conservatives and Ulster Unionists, Sir Reg Empey is my guest this lunchtime for the last Inside Politics until the autumn.

Sir Reg talks about whether he will stand as a candidate for Westminster in East Belfast (he is keeping his options open, but sounds to be veering against), the prospects for transferrring justice powers and the latest tensions within loyalism.

Elsewhere in the programme we discuss the marching season and Peter Robinson's attempts to bring the Garvaghy residents and the Portadown Orange together and Toireasa Ferris's article in An Phoblacht criticising Sinn Fein's performance south of the border.

That's after the one o'clock news, or you can listen to it later on the I player. And the next series of Inside Politics is due back on BBC Radio Ulster from September 13th.

As the Finance Minister donned a safety helmet for his tour of the site he quipped, "People will be wondering why I am putting this on - is it protection against swine flu? Is a swine going to hit me on the head?"

Michael McGimpsey points out that even though he cut a deal with previous Finance Ministers to keep his own efficiency savings and not to bid for extra money from other departments' surpluses, an exception was specifically written in for emergencies like flu pandemics.

Sammy Wilson retorts that there is still a live negotiation, involving Scotland and Wales, with all the devolved nations looking to the Treasury for extra swine flu cash. He accuses Mr McGimpsey of being a "maverick minister" (which is quite something coming from Sammy) whose solo run could undermine those efforts.

One way or another it seems certain that the £18 million needed for swine flu vaccines will be found, but it looks like this argument over the projected £50 million figure for combatting swine flu here could still be continuing in the autumn, provided our ministers are well enough by then to row about anything.

By the way I forgot to mention that when ministers unveiled the rough route of the new improved A5 from Aughnacloy to Donegal at yesterday's North South meeting, someone noticed that the map provided (presumably by Irish officials) identified the Maiden City by the term "Londonderry".

The Deputy First Minister leapt in, putting his thumb over the letters spelling out "London". That reminded me of Paddy Kielty telling a TV audience recently that he had advised Michael McKintyre that to please everyone in the North West he should call the city neither Derry nor Londonderry, but simply "London".

Anyway it was interesting that at a north south meeting which was supposed to be dealing with the economy and swine flu, we didn't have the Finance, Enterprise, Employment or Health Ministers. Oh yes, they are all unionists aren't they?

Today Michael McGimpsey denied Sinn Fein claims that he and Sir Reg Empey were boycotting the North South plenary meetings, pointing out that he met the Irish Health Minister Mary Harney at a health sectoral meeting just a few weeks ago. Maybe if they keep referring to the second city as "Londonderry" the North South Ministerial Council secretariat will find themselves overwhelmed with unionists wanting to attend future gatherings.

However when the news conference began at Farmleigh house it became clear that rather bigger sums had been under discussion. The ministers had been discussing Dublin's plans for a National Asset Management Agency, a so called "bad bank" due to take on up to 90 billion euros of so called toxic assets run up by Irish banks. I have to admit I wasn't familiar with the acronym NAMA, but on enquiring further about this aspect of the discussions I learned that an estimated 30 billion euro worth are outside the Irish Republic, and anything between 15 and 20 billion of these assets could be in Northern Ireland (if the language here sounds vague it's because the officials are dealing in guesstimates - they still don't know exact figures for the toxic assets).

Clearly a sudden move by NAMA to try to claw back cash by selling northern assets could have a sudden negative impact on overall property prices. Certainly the figures involved dwarf the roads money, and once again emphasise the thin economic ice we all appear to be skating on.

On the margins of today's North South Ministerial conference I asked Peter Robinson about the Jeffrey Donaldson expenses story. The DUP leader said Jeffrey was right to be repaying around £680 to the Commons authorities. Back at Stormont my colleague Martina Purdy was asking the Lagan Valley MP about which films he had watched. Jeffrey said they were all blockbusters and family entertainment and gave as an example "The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe".

Having once starred as "Mr Beaver" on the Edinburgh fringe, I think I picked the wrong story. I was following the Yellow Brick road from Dublin to Donegal, when I should have been concentrating on the White Witch and her Turkish delight.

Whilst we were on air the DUP rang up to deny Mr Allister's assertion that Councillor Wilson had resigned from the party. They said his decision to step down from the council was a personal matter not connected witht he party policy on power sharing.

Either way the contest, as Mr Allister maintained, should prove interesting given the focus on North Antrim in the run up to the next Westminster election.

Jim Allister also talked about the Larry Zaitschek case, his annoyance at Peter Robinson supposedly lumping anti-power sharing unionists together with dissident republicans as "wreckers" and the recent erratic behaviour of Ballymena Councillor Robin Sterling (who does not look as if he will be expelled from the TUV).

During discussions with my two guests, Politics Professor Rick Wilford and former civil servant Bill Smith, we covered a number of topics including Westminster expenses in the wake of the Daily Telegraph story on Jeffrey Donaldson, the likelihood of the mandatory coalition being repleced by a voluntary coalition and the supposed diary mix up which saw Martin McGuinness walking in to Downing Street to discuss policing and justice on his own. Rick pointed out that the current mandatory coalition, for all its faults, is more voluntary than people sometimes concede as any of the parties could walk away. Bill, wearing his civil service hat, reckoned that, when it came to the dairy mix up, the "cock up" theory might be more persuasive than the conpiracy one.

Amazingly, on a Drumcree Sunday, we didn't touch on parading. That would not have been imaginable 12 years ago.

It must be hell being Peter Robinson's diary secretary - first Gordon Brown wants to see him in London to discuss policing and justice when he has to be in Belfast for the swearing in of his new ministers. Then Sir Christopher Kelly wants to see him in Belfast when he feels he must be in the Commons.

The DUP has pledged to give Sir Christopher's committee its evidence next Tuesday in London. But now Sinn Fein wants them to be in Stormont on that day for an emergency meeting of the Assembly to process the delayed June Monitoring round.

How can anyone be expected to be in two places at once? Sounds like a prima facie argument against double jobbing.

On which topic the PUP's Dawn Purvis, the first witness today, sounded very strong. She is preparing an anti-double jobbing private member's bill which she plans to introduce at Stormont in the autumn. She urged the Committee to recommend a Westminster ban on the dual mandates without delay.

In his letter to the Committee, Peter Robinson pledged to end the dual mandates by 2015. However Dawn Purvis argued that voluntary action wasn't sufficient as, come election time, each party would end up looking over its shoulder to guess whether its rivals would retire their big hitters or not.

Sinn Fein's Alex Maskey told the Committee his party also wants to end dual mandates. But Sinn Fein's evidence stressed the fragility of the Assembly as the context for double jobbing. It described Stormont as "a work in progress".

Predictably, the DUP argues that Sinn Fein's MP expenses should be cut, whilst republicans maintain they are necessary to support their constituency work. Although Sir Christopher Kelly was playing his cards close to his chest I detected a great reluctance for the committee to make a ruling on such a sensitive political topic. I predict that they will bounce this ball back to the government.

In their evidence, the SDLP suggested limiting MPs to the employment of just one family member, whilst the Ulster Unionists supported an MP's right to hire relatives. However I was struck by the fairly tough line one committee member appeared to take in his questions about family employment, pointing out that the practice had already been ended so far as schools, doctors and dentists are concerned. So could the Committee be about to hand out P45s to the relatives?

Ms Williamson's lawyers had argued that the failure of Messrs Paisley and McGuinness to keep a paper trail documenting their decision to switch from appointing just one Victims Commissioner to a team of four called in to question the candour of the evidence provided by the Executive.

However the judge rejected this arguing that "the process of joint decision making which will command public trust and confidence is a fragile flower which requires careful tending". He said it would be "singularly unhelpful" for the courts to prescribe how the First and Deputy First should secure unity of decision making.

The judgment appears to approve of private deals in what would have been described in days gone by (prior to the smoking ban) as "smoke filled rooms".

The judge did not "find it unlawful or improper that from time to time decisions of the First and Deputy First Minister may be arrived at by joint meetings of the Ministers without officials present or documentation being made of the almost inevitable painstaking and at times perhaps even tortuous or rancorous evolution of agreement which in the initial stages may seem unlikely.....This is a new model of governance and old procedural straight jackets may have to be modified so long as the parties have acted within the rule of law and the terms set down by Parliament. The absence of documentation, note taking or presence of officials in sensitive discussions between Ministers does not lead to the drawing of an adverse inference of unlawfulness, discrimination or of political considerations having infected the process unlawfully."

In short, this judgment looks to have cut the legs off any future attempt to judicially review the OFMDFM and to provide a "carte blanche" for meetings without officials and note takers present.

But never fear, if you disagree in the future with an OFMDFM decision, you don't need to turn to the courts, because our ministers, as Mr Justice Gillen notes "are accountable to the Assembly where they are likely to be questioned and scrutinised". And we all know just how effective the Assembly has been at carrying out that job in the past.

We covered the damage done to Northern Ireland's reputation after the departure of the intimidated Roma familes, whether the new Commons Speaker could tackle the expenses crisis, and if Ian Paisley is too old to stand again as an MP.

On the panel, Ian Paisley Junior told us his dad was "messing with my head" over his possible candidacy at the age of 83. You got a sense that Ian Snr. might simply be keeping his cards close to his chest. Questioned about Iris Robinson's claim (which the Fees Office never approved and the DUP said had been made "in error") for a £300 fountain pen, Ian Jnr. said that anyone who wasn't embarrassed by something like that would have something wrong with them.

Kate Hoey, Alex Maskey, the Equality Commission's Evelyn Collins and the "Apprentice" contestant Ben Clarke weighed in with their views on the topics already mentioned plus whether they would work for free to save their job and if there is a quick fix for the "grunting" problem at Wimbledon. Ben made it clear that he was more interested in looking at Maria Sharapova than listening to whatever noises she makes when she serves.

I don't think I'm giving away too many state secrets if I reveal that the programme is usually recorded about two hours before it goes out on air. Then when it is transmitted people text and phone in their comments. The staff monitoring these incoming messages were puzzled, as the programme neared its end, that an increasing number of viewers were asking what had happened to Michael Jackson. As these comments weren't deemed relevant to the debates on screen they weren't passed on to the edit suite where we were approving messages for transmission. And concentrating on the texts, I didn't think to peruse the news wires. So it was that the programme team were just as shocked as everyone else when "Let's Talk" finished and the London newsroom took over for a newsflash.

This weekend it's my turn to head off on leave, but never fear Inside Politics will be on air as usual on Sunday just after the one o'clock news. Our guest is due to be the Deputy First Minister, Martin McGuinness.

Oh, and the presenter? Here's a clue - who do you think the Deputy Speaker was thinking of on Tuesday before he called one of the Sinn Fein Foyle MLAs to speak in a debate on the full time police reserve?

Here's another clue, from the Official Report. "Mr Deputy Speaker: I call Ms Martina Purd -- Anderson. Ms Anderson. [Laughter.]"

The suggestion is contained in the party's evidence to Sir Christopher Kelly's Committee on Standards in Public Life. The SDLP also suggests that MP's pay should be "in keeping with comparable levels in the senior civil service or in the private sector".

Sir Christopher Kelly's commitee is due to visit Belfast on Wednesday next week. On 18th May the DUP published some of its proposals for the Committee's review of MPs expenses, including the direct employment of all MPs' staff by Westminster. You can find these proposals on the DUP's News Archive, but so far the only full submission from a local party to appear on the Public Standards Committee's website is from the SDLP.

As long ago as May last year, this blog pointed out that, with the TUV threat in mind, the DUP would not be keen on a rash of council by-elections. After the European election, this concern will be all the greater.

Tomorrow the DUP's assembly team are off on an away day. Will they have to take part in any team building activities? All suggestions gratefully accepted, or if you happen to spot an MLA abseiling, ziplining or (my personal favourite) zorbing, let us know.

Presumably whatever they get up to will be funded from their Stormont ministerial salaries, given Peter Robinson's revelation to the News Letter that he and the other DUP ministers put their wages towards party funds.

This "tithe" puts the DUP in a similar category to Sinn Fein, whose politicians take what they term "an average industrial wage". The DUP politicians keep a larger share of their income, but the principle is the same. In both cases the surplus salaries of elected representatives are used to subsidise party coffers.

Given the expenses uproar across the water, would there be a gap in the market for a party standing across the UK on a platform of paying its representatives the average national wage? That's around £24,000 according to this report in the Daily Telegraph. A politician might attract more votes if they pledged to pay the surplus to charity, or back to the public purse, rather than to their own party coffers. Of course they would then have a direct incentive to raise the national wage through good management of the economy.

But don't hold your breath. According to the Daily Mail, the new Commons Speaker wants MPs to get a six figure salary, four times the average wage. In the current climate, politicians are all keen to be seen to put on hairshirts, but I can't imagine many of them wanting to adopt the Sinn Fein salary model.