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Mark Devenport, Political editor, Northern Ireland

Mark Devenport Political editor, Northern Ireland

This is where you can come for my take on the big Stormont stories and the politicians making the news

Mr Gove... Then and now

"The hollowing out of Northern Ireland's Britishness is a progressive process, whereby the British state divests itself of responsibilities and strips the province of evidence of its British character".

Not my words, but those of the Education Secretary Michael Gove, in his pamphlet "The Price of Peace" written 13 years ago.

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Stormont's plans for a shared future

Northern Ireland's first and deputy first ministers have been promising us ambitious plans on a shared future in recent weeks, but providing nothing in the way of detail.

On Thursday, we were summoned to Stormont Castle and presented with a list of initiatives.

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Bit by bit?

Theresa Villiers' speech earlier on Monday is the latest in a series of comments from the secretary of state about an economic package under negotiation with the Stormont Executive.

London ministers hope this deal will be agreed within the coming weeks, prior to the G8 summit due in June.

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Pressing concern for Stormont?

Anyone who watched the question and answer session between reporters and the Northern Ireland first and deputy first ministers at the Titanic centre in Belfast earlier this week won't need me to tell them that relations between the top two at Stormont and our local newspapers are far from smooth.

Peter Robinson objected to the Executive having to "sift" its message through the medium of newspapers who, he argued, regard themselves as an alternative form of "opposition".

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Will schools report follow in the wake of Eames Bradley?

Might some aspects of the Eames Bradley report on the past have been implemented by now if it hadn't been for the team's most controversial suggestion?

That's a thought which flashed through my mind for two reasons.

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Mark added analysis to:

NI guests attend Thatcher funeral

In terms of the official etiquette, Baroness Thatcher's funeral was a ceremonial, not a full, state, funeral.

But watching the coffin being borne on a gun carriage along the Strand, flanked by military bands, it certainly felt like a major state occasion.

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About Mark

BBC journalist since 1980s. Reporter for Spotlight, Ireland Correspondent covering IRA ceasefire and Good Friday Agreement, United Nations Correspondent in New York, Stormont Political Editor since 2001.

Covered stories in Somalia, Sierra Leone, Tanzania and Israel.

Author of Flash Frames -12 Years Reporting Belfast and co -author of Man of War, Man of Peace: a biography of Gerry Adams

Once worked as a trainee reporter for Indian newspaper "The Hindu".

Educated in Oxford before going to university in Cambridge to study history

Liverpool and Oxford United supporter.

Mark has an inherited condition which means he can't eat sweets

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