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This weekend's Inside Politics' victim is the Regional Development Minister Conor Murphy. Most of the interview is about those new water charges..... sorry, they have been scrapped....it's about those new rates bills with a specific water element.

But we also find time to talk about the UDA deadline and why an abstentionist MP wants the Westminster parliament to sort out the Irish Language Act.

As usual, the programme is on at 12.45 on Saturday on ÃÛÑ¿´«Ã½ Radio Ulster.

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Forget Al Gore and his Nobel Peace Prize (although I'm sure our local lads wondered why they'd been passed over) how about a prize for the most camera shy public figure?

The other week when the Lord Chief Justice Sir Brian Kerr gave evidence to a Stormont Committee he managed to get into the building without having his arrival recorded on camera. And when still photographers asked for a picture of the unusual committee hearing their request came to naught. However, Sir Brian's committee appearance was captured on the video cameras installed in the Senate chamber.

But before presenting the LCJ with an award, one would have to take into account the Governor of the Bank of England, Mervyn King, who may be still recovering from his recent grilling over Northern Rock by the Westminister Treasury Select Committee.

Earlier this week the Governor and the Bank of England's Court of Directors paid their first visit to Northern Ireland. My colleague Yvette Shapiro was keen to have a word with the Governor but neither he, nor the Court of Directors, nor the members of the important Monetary Policy Committee (which sets interest rates) would do interviews. Although the Governor's speech to the NI Chamber of Commerce was released to the media, he would not allow himself to be filmed delivering it at the Chamber's dinner at Belfast's Ramada Hotel.

On the evening, Yvette went along to the Ramada . The hosts, the NI Chamber of Commerce, had agreed she could film at their pre-banquet drinks reception and interview local business leaders for a "Hearts and Minds" film on the economy. But while she was in the hotel foyer making a live contribution to that night's ÃÛÑ¿´«Ã½ Newsline, her camera crew and producer were thrown out of the drinks reception by the Bank of England's press officer and security men. The press officer told Yvette she was not allowed to film. When Yvette pointed out that the ÃÛÑ¿´«Ã½ was not filming the Governor and was present with the agreement of the local Chamber of Commerce, the Bank of England finally backed off. All the while, Mr King remained closeted in a private drinks reception for VIPs, far from Yvette's camera.

Would international monetary markets have plummeted if the Governor had actually been pictured walking around a bit of Belfast?

So who gets the award - the LCJ who was captured on video but wouldn't agree to a still photo, or the Governor who issued an official still, but steered clear of any of those new fangled moving pictures?

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This morning on Good Morning Ulster the NIPSA representative John Corey was asked about the possibility of the classroom assistants dispute going to talks at the Labour Relations Agency. He expressed some dissatisfaction with the education boards' offer of talks, on the grounds they have insisted they will only "clarify" their existing pay offer. Instead, NIPSA wants to negotiate a new offer.

That got me thinking about when I had heard this debate before. Then I remembered John Major and Albert Reynolds' Downing Street Declaration way back in the 1990s, before the IRA ceasefire. They insisted it was a "take it or leave it" document. But Sinn Fein wanted "clarification". Which eventually they got. And that was just the start of years of negotiations.

Which made me think that one man's "clarification" is another's "negotiation". And when it comes to a dispute having such a dreadful impact on children with special needs, it's hard to understand anyone, be they a union, employer or minister, standing firm on terminology before getting on with the business of dialogue.

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