Harold Wilson said a week is a long time in politics. I have learned since becoming secretary of state for Northern Ireland that some weeks never end. And others, like deadlines, just become extended. I was struck recently by the observation of another elder statesman about the Northern Ireland peace process. At one of many difficult moments he made a speech in Northern Ireland in which he said:

I was struck, not because of the words he used, but because this was Edward Heath, speaking in August 1973, as he struggled to create a power-sharing Executive for Northern Ireland. That Executive was duly set up after intensive negotiations at Sunningdale in December 1973, but despite the best efforts of its members, it collapsed in May 1974 in the face of widespread unionist opposition. The intervening years have been cruel. Since the day that Sunningdale fell apart 2,259 men, women and children have been killed in the Troubles. Many thousands more have been injured. And countless people have lost family and friends and lost all hope of any respite.