Hearts & Minds has become a vital element of political news coverage in Northern Ireland. Week by week this programme tackles the important political issues wherever Northern Ireland leads the agenda, be it Stormont or Westminster, Brussels or Washington.

The format allows time for in-depth interviewing, often bringing together unlikely bedfellows for discussions which usually generate light rather than just heat.

Presented by Noel Thompson, winner of the Royal Television Society's Regional Presenter of the Year for two years in succession, the programme takes the political temperature at this crucial point on the road to a settlement with in-depth interviews, film reports and a sideways look at the local scene with leading journalists and top cartoonist Ian Knox.

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