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

So how ambitious were they?

A target date of 2023 for bringing down the peace walls and other barriers is certainly eye catching - although it would have come as more of a shock if the BBC had not obtained a draft of the 10-year plan back in January.

I joked with one official that we should really headline Thursday night's story: "Stormont delays removal of walls by a year."

Despite that, it is refreshing to hear local ministers committing themselves to such an ambitious goal.

In the past they have left it to visiting VIPs like the New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg to tell them that a city divided by physical barriers sends out all the wrong messages to the world.

Drawing up a target is easier than achieving it, and many of those who live in the shadow of the peace walls will - especially after the tensions over the union flag dispute - fear the potential consequences of any premature removal.

But the direction of travel is hard to argue with.

Peter Robinson and Martin McGuinness's peace plan is definitely a decimal document.

Ten years to bring down the walls, ten new shared educational campuses, ten new shared neighbourhoods, 100 summer camps and 10,000 placements for young people not in work, training or education.

You can see why they didn't opt for 13 as the common denominator.

Whether they achieve all the round numbers will be interesting to assess - one Alliance politician I bumped into claimed it was proving impossible to fill the training places for young people already on offer. But again, the aspiration appears laudable.

Not so long ago a visiting foreign diplomat asked me why Stormont did not introduce a form of national service to promote citizenship amongst disaffected young people.

I explained why differences over national identity and/or military service would make such an idea a non-starter.

That said, the "United Youth Programme", with its emphasis on citizenship, sharing, work experience and volunteering sounds as close as Stormont could get.

Along with an emphasis on cross community sports, few could reject the idea outright, although some might wonder how new such schemes are.

Predictably other Stormont parties have given the DUP-Sinn Fein announcement a dusty response - the SDLP called it a rehash of the items previously under discussion as part of the Cohesion, Sharing and Integration (CSI) strategy.

Alliance described it as a collection of "one-off, back of the envelope initiatives".

But in a previous era, London and Dublin often came in for criticism when they sought to break deadlocks by putting their heads together then pushing forward with their best guess at a compromise everyone could live with.

In the devolved era, the DUP and Sinn Fein find themselves playing a a slightly similar role, although the fact that they are dealing with their electoral opponents adds an extra edge to the cross-party discord.

Will an independent chair be able to broker deals on flags, parades and the past when the previous Stormont working group has failed to reach a consensus?

That will depend not only on the personality and experience of the individual, but also whether they are seen to have sufficient authority.

Although the first and deputy first ministers argue there is no real connection, it is undeniable that Thursday's step forward followed pressure from the secretary of state and the prime minister, linking fresh economic support to the need for more progress on a shared future.

The US government was quick to welcome the Stormont announcement.

It may be that Washington, London and Dublin still have a role to play, either by putting their diplomatic weight behind whoever chairs the cross-party talks on flags, parades and the past or perhaps by contributing some much needed fresh ideas for how to go about cracking these hardest of hard nuts.

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

While the deal was first reported as London wielding a stick over the heads of intransigent Stormont ministers, it wasn't long before the Northern Ireland Office clarified that what they had in mind was more of a carrot, providing extra support to the Executive.

On Monday, the secretary of state described the negotiation as a two-way street, insisting that the more ambitious Stormont is when it comes to a shared future, then the more assistance Westminster will feel able to provide.

The layman might think that the obvious big gesture for Stormont to make would be to publish the long delayed Cohesion Sharing and Integration strategy, a draft of which the BBC obtained back in January.

However, publishing the whole document might be fraught with difficulties.

As the Deputy First Minister Martin McGuinness explained at a Stormont Castle news conference at lunchtime, the parties are still nowhere near resolving their differences on major issues like flags, parades and the past.

If a document was published with yawning gaps on these key issues, then it might just invite a wave of criticism.

So the latest thinking is that, in tandem with any Westminster financial deal, Stormont ministers might try to implement some less contentious community relations initiatives.

The secretary of state and the first and deputy first ministers declined to be drawn on any specific projects on Monday.

But talking to teenagers at the Belfast Metropolitan Arts Centre (MAC), Ms Villiers spoke enthusiastically about shared education, while the Irish foreign minister, Eamon Gilmore, hinted that both Dublin and London might be ready to add to the proposed 150m euros (£127m) Peace IV programme.

The January draft of the Stormont community relations paper included ideas for, amongst other things, anti-sectarian classes, a buddy scheme for nursery and primary school children and an annual cultural awareness day.

Whether any of these proposals are in the mix for the latest "bit by bit" approach to a shared future isn't clear at this stage.

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".

In an editorial, the Irish News responded that it "has never sought to take on the duties of an opposition group".

Instead it defined its objective as reflecting "the achievements of our elected representatives, whether or not they return our calls" while also holding "them to account for all aspects of their record in public life".

In the light of this latest Stormont media spat, there was an interesting aside at the start of Wednesday's meeting of the Stormont committee that shadows the first and deputy first ministers' office.

The chair, Ulster Unionist leader Mike Nesbitt, drew the attention of committee members to an article in last month's Press Gazette reporting that the House of Lords has left the way open for Scotland and Northern Ireland to draw up their own separate regimes on press regulation.

According to the Press Gazette, the royal charter drawn up in the wake of Lord Leveson's inquiry into the press will only apply to England and Wales.

Mr Nesbitt agreed with his committee members that they should seek legal advice about exactly what role Stormont might end up playing in relation to the press.

There is already controversy that the defamation bill that has just made its way through the House of Commons won't apply to Northern Ireland.

Now, across the water, there is confusion about what system might come into force after the majority of newspapers rejected the cross-party Westminster proposal.

However these matters are resolved, local newspaper editors will no doubt be keen to see the detail of any legal advice Mike Nesbitt gets, as the thought of a separate, Stormont-led system of press regulation is likely to send a shiver up their spines

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

First, I attended the launch of a Progressive Unionist document on reconciliation at which Councillor John Kyle talked about the Eames Bradley report having been "binned".

Second, I had just read through a Shared Education report commissioned by John O'Dowd.

The Achilles Heel of the Eames Bradley report turned out to be its headline grabbing idea that the family of every Troubles victim should get £12,000, irrespective of whether their loved one was a paramilitary, a member of the security forces or a civilian. NI Troubles legacy to cost £300m

This suggestion provoked angry and impassioned responses. Over time, not just the £12,000 payments, but all the other Eames Bradley ideas for a "Legacy Commission" and an Annual Day Of Reflection were quietly moth-balled.

The Connolly report on Shared Education has not proved quite so contentious. 'Schools must boost equality by law'

Sinn Fein Education Minister John O'Dowd hailed it as an important step on the way to 2015, the date by which the Northern Ireland Executive has committed to provide all children with an opportunity to take part in shared education.

However, the report's recommendation that academic selection should be outlawed was always guaranteed to polarise the Stormont parties. In addition its refusal to regard integrated schools as a "preferred option" has annoyed Alliance politicians.

Unionists accuse the team who produced the report of taking a selective approach to "parental choice" - respecting it when it comes to providing a range of schools with different religious or cultural identities, but not when parents back grammar schools.

The report's authors claim this is a false analogy, arguing that many working class children don't have a realistic choice of benefitting from a grammar school education.

The Connolly team say their recommendations on academic selection shouldn't put the parties off implementing their other suggestions, which would create more incentives for schools to work together.

Which brings me back to Eames Bradley. Will the controversial aspects of the Connolly report mean its less contentious proposals end up getting shelved, as happened to the report on the past?

Or, given that education is a very different matter, and sharing between schools fits into the Executive's long delayed "Cohesion, Sharing and Integration" blueprint, will the bulk of this report be implemented? I'm inclined to favour the latter. However. given the Stormont parties' propensity for locking horns, I'm not writing off the potential for deadlock.

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.

The Bishop of London, the Rt Rev Richard Chartres told mourners the funeral wasn't the right time to debate the controversies over her life.

He described her as, in some ways, a mythological figure.

Some people protested along the funeral route, but hundreds of others broke into applause as the coffin passed by.

My news editor had no such dilemma, promptly despatching me to the Park Avenue hotel in east Belfast, where I watched Mike Nesbitt tell a group of teenagers from local schools that the UUP had paid a big political price for signing the deal, but had chosen to put the country before the party.

Our news agenda was less consumed by the UUP giving its version of what happened back in 1998 and more by the secretary of state's warning that local politicians could lose out on economic assistance if they don't make swifter progress on improving community relations.

This has been characterised in some quarters as the British government waving a stick at Stormont, prompting both Sinn Fein and the DUP to hit back angrily at the Northern Ireland Office.

However in a subsequent statement Theresa Villiers portrayed what she'd said as more of a carrot dangled in front of Stormont noses, arguing the economic package she was talking about was extra cash, not assistance already agreed.

Back at the Park Avenue hotel I felt more like a historic exhibit than a reporter given that the events of 15 years ago are stuck so clearly in my mind.

I chatted to a couple of pupils from Ashfield Girls School, Grace Mamwa and Sophie Wedge, who impressed me both with their grasp of Northern Ireland's recent history and their optimism about the potential for their generation to move things forward.

Because of time pressures with the lunchtime news looming up, I didn't get to talk on camera to the pupils from Ashfield Boys who were also in the audience. This turned out to be a pity, because the next day I got a message from one of their grannies.

Laurie told me the Park Avenue event hadn't been the first time I'd crossed paths with her grandson Carter. Back in June 1998, when elections were held to the new Assembly, I filmed a report from the Ulster Hospital's maternity suite, which had a view out over Stormont, on the kind of powers the new institutions would wield.

We took some pictures of the newborn Carter and his proud parents. Now Carter is approaching his 15th birthday, doing well by his grandmother's account, and thinking about joining the police. So all the best to him, whatever he decides.

Chatting to Granny Laurie about the events of the last few days, she made it clear that she didn't think it right some people have taken to the streets holding parties to celebrate Lady Thatcher's death. But of course not everyone agrees. Straight after finishing our conversation I drove up to Andersonstown to record an interview with Gerry Adams, which you can hear on BBC Radio Ulster's Inside Politics.

When I emerged from the Sinn Fein office at Connolly House I found a rain-sodden piece of paper under my windscreen wiper. A flyer from a local fast food carryout? No. Someone who'd spotted me parking had written me a note "Thatcher was a war criminal. Put that in your report."

It's a novel way for a hack to get a quote, but it sure beats coming back to your car and finding the piece of paper under your wiper is a parking ticket.

Or a leader willing - perhaps against her instincts - to give politics a chance, whose decision to sign the Anglo-Irish Agreement provided the bedrock for the subsequent peace process, as the former Northern Ireland Secretary, Lord King, argued on BBC Newsline?

As Monday's heated exchanges across the Stormont chamber illustrated, the argument about Lady Thatcher's Northern Ireland legacy is not likely to be resolved any time soon.

Baroness Thatcher's time in office was marked by some of the Troubles' darkest episodes. Yet behind her determination to "never surrender" to terrorism, and to meet violence head on, there were nuances.

Those included not just signing the Anglo-Irish Agreement in 1985, but also her willingness to authorise back channel contacts with the IRA leadership during the hunger strikes in the early 1980s.

Over the days to come there will no doubt be renewed focus on the claims and counter claims about exactly what Lady Thatcher and her officials had been willing to concede to the prisoners as those hunger strikes dragged on.

Just after confirming her decision to resign in 1990, Lady Thatcher faced her last Prime Minister's questions in the House of Commons. Her first question came from the Ulster Unionist MP, Martin Smyth, who assured her she would have empathy from unionists who "knew what betrayal means".

If there was a slight barb in that comment, the outgoing prime minister did not respond to it. Instead she told the Reverend Smyth she hoped "to visit the province many times in the future, perhaps in a slightly different capacity". Maybe for obvious security reasons, this never came to pass.

It is hard to imagine the "Iron Lady" stomaching the kind of compromises her successors at Number Ten made in the pursuit of peace. In 1997 she argued that allowing Sinn Fein to enter talks on the future of Northern Ireland whilst the IRA retained its arms "surely represents the last concession that prudence could commend".

In 1999, the year after the Good Friday Agreement was signed, Lady Thatcher expressed her revulsion at the sight of "Irish terrorist murderers….flooding out of jail" as just one example of what she regarded as the erosion of Britain's way of life under Tony Blair's Labour government.

Whilst these references reveal the disdain with which she regarded some aspects of the Good Friday Agreement, what is most significant is that such public comments were so few and far between. Instead of criticising from the sidelines, Lady Thatcher let Messrs Major and Blair proceed unhindered.

In a speech in India in 1995 she told her audience: "It demands considerable patience and statesmanship to try to ensure that real grounds for grievance among national, ethnic or religious minorities are resolved by reasoned discussion."

Elsewhere in her speech she also argued that "we should never concede more to those who threaten us with a gun than we would to those who promote their views through the ballot box".

Once out of office, Baroness Thatcher afforded the prime ministers who followed her, space to decide how to confront such challenges, challenges which she believed were not unique to Northern Ireland.

The walkabout by George Osborne at Wrightbus in Ballymena?

The appearance by the exchequer secretary, David Gauke, at the launch of a public consultation at the Kelvatek electronic plant at Lisburn?

The countless interviews with former Secretary of State Owen Paterson extolling a corporation tax cut as a potential way of rebalancing Northern Ireland's public sector dominated economy?

After marching Northern Ireland's business community up the hill, David Cameron's government has now left Stormont back virtually where it was when Gordon Brown occupied Number Ten.

Then, after a similar period of enthusiasm, the retired treasury mandarin, Sir David Varney, gave the proposed initiative a thumbs down.

On a visit to Edinburgh, Peter Robinson and Martin McGuinness tried to convince Alex Salmond not to spoil their pitch for devolving business taxes.

However, as soon as Scottish politicians expressed their interest in getting the power, the Treasury was always going do its sums - bearing in mind what any change might mean, not just for Northern Ireland, but also for the potential loss of Scotland's more lucrative business tax yield.

David Gauke said devolving the power to Edinburgh would raise the prospect of "substantial practical profit shifting issues".

By postponing any decision until after the Scottish independence referendum, the London government has opened itself up to renewed criticism from the SNP that the only way for Scotland to get wider powers is for voters to opt for full independence.

London ministers appear to be banking - on the basis of the opinion polls - on a Scottish "no" vote.

David Cameron has said that after such a result, London would be flexible about extending extra powers to Edinburgh.

But the prime minister, it seems, would rather get into the nitty gritty of corporation tax after the Scottish poll, than create a precedent beforehand.

Some may welcome Downing Street's decision to pour cold water on the corporation tax campaign.

The trade unions and the North Down MP, Lady Sylvia Hermon, worried about the potential cost to public services.

The TUV leader, Jim Allister, reckoned trying to match the Irish Republic's 12.5% rate was "chasing a moonbeam".

But for the five main Stormont parties and the business lobbyists who had been building up their hopes in recent days this is a tough blow.

They'd hoped corporation tax might prove a "game changer" - now they are going to have to go back to playing their same, old game.

If I sought a meeting with the bosses at NASA to tell them they had a duty to prove their astronauts really did walk on the moon, you might conclude I'm lending credence to the "perception".

This week Peter Robinson and other unionists raised questions over the courts' handling of recent bail decisions. When challenged over whether they were impinging on the judiciary's independence, the politicians took refuge in the defence that the "perception" is widely held within their community so ought to be addressed.

The Lord Chief Justice's Office responded by acknowledging that public representatives were entitled to voice criticism of court decisions. However a senior official added that judges should not be subjected to improper external influence.

In practice, defining the difference between reasonable criticism and improper influence may prove every bit as difficult as drawing a precise line between perception and reality.

Responding to criticism of his intervention from the NIO Minister Mike Penning, Peter Robinson insisted he wouldn't be silenced when he sees the need to speak. To give unionists their due, by invoking the "perception" of bias in the courts at least they've taken a slightly more sophisticated line than Sinn Fein politicians who didn't qualify their previous assertions that the PSNI is engaging in "political policing".

Unionists weren't the only ones dealing in perceptions this week. Giving evidence to the Northern Ireland Affairs Committee, the Secretary of State Theresa Villiers acknowledged there may not be a lot of direct evidence that local political donors would be under threat if their names are published. But she added that the perception they could be at risk exists and has to be addressed.

Recent threats to Martin McGuinness, Conall McDevitt and many other politicians demonstrate local politics remains a risky business. However those who want the identity of political donors revealed point out that people had to sign politicians' nomination papers during countless elections throughout the troubles. And those names were open to public view. So why, they argue, should party donors feel themselves at particular risk?

During some feisty exchanges with lobbyists from Friends of the Earth, the Upper Bann MP David Simpson argued that the risk to donors could not be compared to the position of those who signed election papers for candidates. Mr Simpson asked the lobbyists to put themselves in the shoes of a unionist sympathising businessman in South Armagh. How would they feel?

Friends of the Earth countered that Northern Ireland shouldn't be regarded as a place apart, citing examples, like the stabbing attack on Labour MP Stephen Timms, when politicians in Great Britain have been under direct threat. The Upper Bann MP didn't seem convinced.

A lot of store was set on evidence from the Ulster Unionists that unnamed businessmen had asked them not to send thank you letters in case this compromised their anonymity. Interestingly no-one mentioned one significant Newry businessman who wasn't deterred from making massive donations to the Conservatives, even though his name was widely publicised. Lord Ballyedmond's generosity towards David Cameron and his predecessors is a matter of public record.

Some witnesses before the committee suggested the police might play a role in assessing whether donors' perception that they may be under risk was based on reality.

However, the Secretary of State appeared reluctant to go down this road, as it could drag the police into highly contentious political territory.

But Theresa Villiers said the police might well be consulted in the future for their general security assessment should the government decide to opt for the publication of donations to parties.

In fact it's a wonder the argument about risks to donors has gone on so long without the PSNI already having been asked for their advice.

One interesting piece of evidence came from the Chair of the Committee on Standards in Public Life, Sir Christopher Kelly, who deduced from the evidence given by the Stormont parties that none of them were in receipt of individual donations over the reporting threshold of £7500.

In that case, Sir Christopher surmised, the debate about whether such gifts should be publicised might be largely academic. That's his "perception". But for now - with so little information about Northern Ireland party funding out in the open - we'll have to wait a while before we can work out how that perception matches up to reality.

In my defence, I had not been intending to conduct a survey at all, but just making my way into BBC Broadcasting House. As I headed through the swing doors, a new party - aka Basil McCrea and John McCallister - was coming in the opposite direction. I stopped to chat in the crisp February sunshine about how the gang of two had fared on Good Morning Ulster and the Nolan Show, when someone else emerged from the BBC.

Before hopping into a waiting taxi, the man turned to Messrs McCrea and McCallister and told them in no uncertain terms that they should be "ashamed of themselves". They had, maintained the passer-by, badly let down unionism. The new party leader retorted that he had nothing to be ashamed of and stood by everything he had said. The taxi pulled away.

Within seconds another pedestrian approached to shake the MLAs by the hands. This man told them he thoroughly approved of their new venture.

So there we are - an unrepresentative sample of two males holding diametrically opposing views. I did not recognise him at the time, but it later transpired the man who thought the new party should hang their heads in shame was the father of a jailed union flag protestor, on his way out after a Talkback interview.

So not necessarily the McCrea/McCallister target audience. But then the man who thought the two MLAs were on the right track added "and you can say that came from a republican", which also was not necessarily that heartening if you are planning to canvass for votes around unionist areas of Lagan Valley or South Down.

So is there a gap in the market for the New Northern Ireland Party? The two MLAs distinguish themselves from Alliance by pointing out they are pro-Union and pro-opposition. They distinguish themselves from the other unionists by their opposition to flag waving and unity candidates.

In contrast to the Northern Ireland Conservatives, they have a presence in the Assembly and both of them are adept at using the airwaves to get their message across.

Against this, it must be an early disappointment that the East Londonderry MLA David McClarty felt his pledge to remain independent meant he could not come on board. Whilst the New Party will want to position itself as the party of those who consider themselves "Northern Irish", others, such as Alliance, will contest that territory.

Come election time, the New Party will find itself ranged against opponents with more financial and organisational muscle, whilst the fragmentation of the pro-Union vote might make it difficult for any smaller party to keep its head above the electoral waters.

Once the New Party has acquired a proper name and a raft of policies it will eventually stop feeling particularly new and the fickle media will move on to other stories.

Quite separately, before the two MLAs let us know of their intention to form their own group, Ulster Unionist sources had been briefing me that they plan to take a more militant line on welfare reform.

The Ulster Unionists say they have "serious reservations about the Welfare Reform Bill in its current form" and are "committed to proposing significant amendments that will better target welfare resources as this Bill falls far short of what is required."

The development is not directly related to the McCrea/McCallister saga, but picking an argument with Nelson McCausland might serve to put some clear water between the UUP and the DUP.

It should also please East Belfast MLA Michael Copeland, who famously delivered a filibuster speech on the topic of welfare reform, and was rumoured to have been increasingly unhappy about the prospect of the UUP backing the bill once again.

When the Welfare Reform bill had its marathon second reading in October, the DUP relied on the support of the Ulster Unionists and the Alliance. If the Ulster Unionists withdraw their backing, it could make for another lively and lengthy debate in April which will test the willingness of all the Stormont parties to breach the principle of parity with Great Britain when it comes to welfare payments.

After two months probing, I managed to discover that the Victims Commission was talking to the Social Development Department about the issue. However I couldn't get any further.

East Belfast Ulster Unionist MLA Michael Copeland started the ball rolling when he pointed out the reference to the London bombings in the welfare reform regulations.

Now another East Belfast MLA, Chris Lyttle, has provided some answers by putting an assembly question to the minister, Nelson McCausland.

In short, it looks as if the disparity in treatment is because some London compensation payments came from a charitable fund, not a government scheme. The full story is here.

My thanks to both politicians for shedding some light on this disparity, although since none of us would choose to become victims of violence I still wonder whether all such compensation should be exempted from means testing, irrespective of its source.

Many assembly members complain about the length of time it takes departments to answer their queries. Here's an example of a journalist's question making its way through the system rather more slowly than the average mollusc.

Around the end of November, the East Belfast Ulster Unionist MLA Michael Copeland complained to me that the welfare legislation under consideration at the Assembly was a "copy and paste job" which had simply been imported from Westminster in its entirety.

As an illustration of what he was talking about, Mr Copeland pointed to a clause in the legislation dealing with the kind of deductions which might be made from any payments of the new Universal Credit to a claimant.

Universal Credit is replacing six existing benefits including Income Support. It is expected to be introduced into Northern Ireland from April next year.

The legislation now making its way through the Assembly makes it clear that if a claimant has unearned income this will, in most cases, be taken into account whenever the level of Universal Credit to which they are entitled is calculated.

However, the regulations attached to the legislation also specify particular kinds of income which will not be taken into account when deciding on such benefit deductions.

Those special cases include compensation payments made in relation to a diagnosis of the degenerative Creutzfeldt-Jacob brain disease, infection from contaminated blood products, to holders of the Victoria and George Crosses, and to victims of the 2005 London bombings.

Michael Copeland didn't want these exemptions removed from the welfare regulations.

But he argued that - in comparison to the 2005 London bombings - the Social Development department had given "no similar consideration to the victims of atrocities committed against the citizens of Northern Ireland".

Mr Copeland described this as "a shocking example of how little effort the DSD have taken to put their own stamp on this proposed legislation".

On 3 December, I asked the department for a response, querying whether there were any plans for special consideration to be built into the local welfare legislation for compensation payments made to victims of the Troubles.

Later that day Belfast City Council took its controversial vote on the Union flag and the welfare story receded on my list of priorities.

But late last month I remembered I never got an answer from the DSD. So, nearly two months after asking my original question, I gave the department another nudge.

Last week the DSD explained to me that it had decided to duplicate the exemption for London bombing compensation in the local welfare regulations in case "anybody affected either lives or moves to Northern Ireland".

On whether any similar exemptions might apply to Troubles victims, a department spokesperson said "relevant issues" were being discussed with the Victims Commissioner and other meetings were being arranged "to ensure that real action is taken to understand how the reforms will impact on local people".

Since that did not directly answer my question I turned to the Victims Commissioner's Office, who told me there would be further meetings between the minister, Nelson McCausland, and the Commission to discuss "issues relevant to victims and survivors... including that of compensation payments".

So two and half months on from setting out on this quest, I still don't know whether the Department of Social Development will treat Troubles victims in Northern Ireland on a par with victims of the 2005 London bombings.

However, if there's a breakthrough, on the basis of the time it's taken me to get this far, I'm sure I'll be the last to know.

It made me wonder whether, in covering the campaign for the by-election in Mid Ulster due one week later, a reporter could get away with a piece to camera explaining that "the stakes could hardly be any lower".

That's not to diminish the concerns of the electorate in Mid Ulster.

But, in contrast to Eastleigh, where the future of the Westminster coalition may be influenced by the outcome, Mid Ulster appears likely to see the replacement of one abstentionist Sinn Fein MP with another.

Nothing is over and done with until the people put their ballot papers in the boxes, but Sinn Fein appears so confident that Francie Molloy will succeed Martin McGuinness that the party has already confirmed Mitchel McLaughlin as Mr Molloy's potential successor at Stormont as principal deputy speaker.

Patsy McGlone will do his best to fly the SDLP flag, whilst at the time of writing there's still speculation about a potential unionist unity candidate or the entry of a dissident republican into the race.

But the husband of the prisoner Marian Price has told me on a couple of occasions he doesn't back the idea of a proxy candidate standing on his wife's behalf.

In the absence of such a development, it's hard to see the electoral maths opening up a real opportunity for a unionist candidate, no matter how united his or her support. Willie Fraser has also said he'll throw his hat into the ring.

Coincidentally, on the day the writ was moved for the Mid Ulster by-election, the Northern Ireland Office published its draft bill on double jobbing and other potential changes to the political system here.

The Conservatives may point to the impending ban on double jobbing as a reason why Martin McGuinness et al are now making their choices between Stormont and Westminster.

However it was the decisive action by the Assembly's Independent Financial Review Panel, in radically reducing any allowances for politicians with dual mandates, which really forced the Stormont parties' hands.

Thinking back to the era of UCUNF, when David Cameron was over here promising to tackle double jobbing and Sinn Fein's Westminster allowances, I can remember being told that consideration would be given to handing a Westminster seat to a runner-up if a victorious abstentionist candidate refused to take their seat.

That idea went away, and we've yet to see the long-promised action on cutting Sinn Fein MP's allowances.

Is this because it could be a useful bargaining chip in some future negotiation with the DUP?

Or simply proof that it's easier to make promises in opposition than to deliver them in government?

The Northern Ireland Office draft bill long-fingers various other ideas Owen Paterson floated - an extended Stormont term, a smaller assembly or legislation to provide for an opposition.

If successive secretaries of state wait until there's an all-party consensus at Stormont on the need for an opposition, then they will wait a long time.

At this point it's hard not to conclude that John McCallister was right when, during the Ulster Unionist leadership race, he argued that the only way an opposition is going to happen is if parties take unilateral action themselves.

The bill also covers the anonymity currently granted to party political donors here, an issue which has attracted the interest of campaigning groups such as Friends of the Earth.

The veil of anonymity had been due to be drawn aside at the end of this month, potentially making donations given as far back as 2007 open to public scrutiny.

That's now been extended to September 2014, but the latest draft bill enables the Northern Ireland Secretary to gradually liberalise the donations system enabling some details to be published.

Is this a positive move towards greater transparency, as the local Conservatives claim?

Or a wasted opportunity to move to full disclosure of party funding, as the Alliance Party argues? If future secretaries of state move as slowly on this as their predecessors we may know the answer some time around 2021.

Alliance's proposals on education are more radical than those contained in the Cohesion Sharing and Integration (CSI) draft report.

Whilst the cross-party report suggested a "buddy scheme" for nursery and primary school children and anti-sectarianism classes, Alliance is pushing for a tripling of the number of children attending integrated schools.

The Alliance proposal that all new-build schools should be integrated, except in exceptional cases, doesn't quite amount to the "End Catholic Education" headlined by the Irish News.

However, it has prompted criticism from the DUP and Sinn Fein, as well as the SDLP assembly member and former teacher Sean Rogers who claims Alliance seems prepared to "eliminate parental choice entirely".

On flags, "For Everyone" says the designated days policy recently adopted by Belfast City Council should be applied to all public and civic buildings.

It says a common policy on flag flying should be applied to all the 11 new councils due to be created under the Review of Public Administration.

Although the document doesn't explicitly state it, Alliance officials confirm that their preferred policy for all council buildings is to fly the union flag on designated days, which, if adopted, could create a stir in those western districts, which don't currently fly flags.

Alliance also wants to restrict flag flying on the public highway.

"For Everyone" says there should be zero tolerance for paramilitary flags.

It suggests that those who want to display legal flags on street furniture such as lampposts might be licensed to do so for a fortnight around a particular celebration, after which they would have to take them down.

The Stormont working party group draft report refers to the development of proposals for flying flags - but it's evident from the square brackets and typefaces used that this suggestion remains disputed.

Moreover earlier this month Peter Robinson told me the DUP would reject any Parades Commission style body to regulate flag flying on the streets.

On how to take community relations work forward, Alliance proposes a revamped, more powerful, Community Relations Council to be known as the "Shared Future Council".

By contrast the Stormont working group paper appears to either abolish or relegate the Community Relations Council to the sidelines, instead choosing to expand the current Equality Commission, under the title of "Equality and Good Relations Commission".

The Alliance document is more than 70 pages long, whilst the Stormont CSI draft is over 100 pages in length.

So a comprehensive "compare and contrast" would tax most readers' patience.

But there is one interesting area in which Alliance appears less ambitious than the other parties' draft report.

This is in relation to peacelines, where the Alliance target of removing 20% of interface barriers by 2023 is far more cautious than the CSI draft report target of eliminating all peace walls by 2022.

Questioned about this disparity on Good Morning Ulster, the Alliance leader David Ford said his party's proposal was "more realistic" than what he called the "grand-standing" approach taken by the others.

However the 2022 target date for the "elimination of all divisive structures" which I reported last week was not a new idea hatched by the other Stormont parties after Alliance quit the Cohesion Sharing and Integration working group.

In fact the 2022 target can be found in an earlier document drafted in May last year, before Alliance withdrew their representative from the CSI group.

On Tuesday Alliance published its own paper.

The party wants 20% of all children in Northern Ireland to go to integrated schools by 2020. That would be a sharp increase from the current figure of 6%.

The party also wants a further 40% of children to go to schools with children from a mix of backgrounds. Alliance want 20% of interface barriers removed over the next decade.

It wants the flying of flags on public roads subjected to regulation, the flying of flags on designated days over public and civic buildings and the negotiation of a common policy for the flying of flags at all district council buildings.

I took my understanding from the wording of the agreement and the 1998 law, both of which refer to the Secretary of State calling a 'border poll'.

There's no mention in either document of the Tanaiste needing to sign off on such a decision, even if in practical terms it's impossible to imagine London pushing ahead with such a move without at least some form of tacit approval from Dublin.

However, the South Belfast MLA has pointed me to the wording of the Irish constitution which replaced the old Articles 2 and 3. Those articles laid a direct territorial claim to the territory of Northern Ireland.

By contrast the new Article 3.1 states that "it is the firm will of the Irish nation, in harmony and friendship, to unite all the people who share the territory of the island of Ireland, in all the diversity of their identities and traditions, recognising that a united Ireland shall be brought about only by peaceful means with the consent of a majority of the people, democratically expressed, in both jurisdictions in the island".

It seems clear from this article that you couldn't get a United Ireland unless you had a similar poll south of the border.

Whether the southern poll would, as in the case of the Good Friday Agreement, have to be held at exactly the same time as a northern referendum is less clear.

Would it be worth an Irish government putting southern voters to the trouble of going to their polling stations unless their northern counterparts had already demonstrated their consent for unification?

Given that both London and Dublin, in the shape of Theresa Villiers and Enda Kenny, have made plain their opposition to a 'border poll' any time soon, the question remains rather academic. But the Irish constitutional requirement for consent in both jurisdictions raises the intriguing prospect of southern voters disagreeing with their northern cousins should A Nation Once Again turn from an anthem into a realistic prospect.

Would southern Irish voters balk at the prospect of taking on the heavily subsidised north? Or, like West Germans embracing their much poorer eastern brothers and sisters, would historic nationalism trump short term economics?

So what's going on?

The DUP hasn't yet made a definite decision to drop its opposition to a poll - instead the party is "having this discussion but has not reached a conclusion on the matter".

They still insist republicans talking up a border poll is "fantasy politics". That hasn't stopped Sinn Fein welcoming the DUP comments as making space for a "clear, radical and open debate in regards to the social, economic and political benefits of a united Ireland".

The Good Friday Agreement and the 1998 Northern Ireland Act give the power to call a border poll to the secretary of state (even though both the Northern Ireland secretary at the time of the agreement and the current incumbent were and are women, both documents refer to the secretary as "him").

Whether it's a him or a her, my reading of the law is that the Northern Ireland secretary "may" call a border poll at any time. However, if there's clear evidence that a majority of people in Northern Ireland want to leave the UK and join a united Ireland, then the agreement places a duty on the secretary of state who "shall" arrange a referendum.

If the poll results in a vote for Northern Ireland to remain in the UK, the agreement says a similar exercise shouldn't be repeated for at least seven years. So the seven-year stipulation isn't a requirement to automatically repeat the exercise, but a minimum period which must elapse between border polls.

Having given it some thought, the DUP could revert to last week's position, although that might look a bit like a retreat. Alternatively they could enter into negotiations over the conditions attached to a poll.

If we have a poll relatively soon, would unionists argue that the seven-year gap between referendums should be extended? That was a thought I put to Sinn Fein's Mitchel McLaughlin who responded by insisting that republicans would stand by the text of the agreement.

Another item for negotiation might be who should make a decision on future border polls. One very senior unionist source suggested to me that if a poll reaffirmed Northern Ireland's position in the UK, it should be up to a simple majority vote within the assembly to decide when and whether a future referendum might be held. Generally Sinn Fein has been keen to take powers away from the secretary of state, but I imagine republicans would be sceptical over devolving decisions on a border poll.

So if the DUP does adopt a "call their bluff" policy, and these hurdles are overcome, how soon could we have a border poll?

My senior source suggested it could run at the same time as the next big election - the European election expected in June next year. If that happens Northern Ireland would actually beat Scotland to the punch, as its independence vote isn't due until autumn 2014.

But before any canvassers hit the streets, bear in mind that Theresa Villiers doesn't seem keen. A spokeswoman said the secretary of state has "no present plans to call such a poll", describing it as a diversion from pressing economic and social issues.

The four-day turn around in DUP thinking remains puzzling. The fact they haven't made a decision emphasises that holding a border poll wouldn't be without its risks.

But a border poll might boost voter registration in unionist areas - a concern raised at recent unionist forum meetings. It might also unite unionism around a campaign, rather than having different shades of unionism and loyalism at loggerheads over the union flag.

Both flag poles and border polls are about national identity, but some unionists might find a referendum easier to handle than the running battles of recent weeks.

However, national identity remains a source of deep division in Northern Ireland.

Disputes about flags and symbols have been a regular occurrence over the decades.

However, national identity remains a source of deep division in Northern Ireland.

Disputes about flags and symbols have been a regular occurrence over the decades.

However, national identity remains a source of deep division in Northern Ireland.

Disputes about flags and symbols have been a regular occurrence over the decades.

Flags and symbols