I'm about to record tomorrow's Inside Politics. This weekend's guest is the Security Minister Paul Goggins who will be talking about a Criminal Justice Order he is publishing next week ending 50% remission for violent and sexual offenders. Given that his predecessor David Hansen promised this change in December 2006 and the new order is unlikely to come into force until the spring of next year, many people's reaction will be - what is taking you so long?
I also hope to get in questions about the loyalist decommissioning which took place in Ballykinlar army base and the security force's assessment of the Paul Quinn murder.
The programme goes out at 12.45 tomorrow on ´óÏó´«Ã½ Radio Ulster, by which time I hope to be in Armagh at the SDLP conference.
These are changing times if your name is Tom Kelly and you hail from Northern Ireland. The government of Malta has just appointed the SDLP activist and boss of Stakeholder communications to be the first Maltese Honorary Consul. If the consul has any difficulty flying back and forth between here and Malta he could do worse than to turn to the other Tom Kelly. Tony Blair's former spin doctor and onetime news editor here at ´óÏó´«Ã½ Belfast takes up a new job next week. He is to be public affairs director for the airport operator, BAA.
So the review headed by George Reid has now been published. It doesn't pull its punches about what it views as the dysfunctional nature of the assembly's Senior Management Board. Amongst other things it talks of a "silo mentality" with parts of the Assembly and suggestions for change going into a "black hole". The Chief Clerk's retirement was announced some time ago - other senior managers are now on the move back to their original perches in the civil service. Carol Devon, Director of Access at the Scottish Parliament, has been appointed as interim Chief Executive for the next few months.
The Reid report also recommends the creation of a new assembly staff service separate from the civil service and backs the construction of a new building to accommodate Stormont committees and other facilities. This will be on the Stormont estate (probably on the site of the staff car park).
So the start of a new era? Us scribblers will only believe it when we are liberated from our incarceration in the Stormont basement.
I'm 