<>

(Professor Marc Mulholland, Professor of Modern History, Oxford)

This is the second volume in which Peter Raina presents the Blair government's Devolution papers. Here, the focus shifts to Northern Ireland in the midst of the <> - a situation where discrimination and bigotry in a society divided by religious and national affiliations had erupted into hatred, violence and fear.

Tony Blair, his minister Mo Mowlam and a team of civil servants and others reached for American help and worked intensely with Gerry Adams, Leader of Sinn Fein, and with the government of the Republic in the South of Ireland to bring the warring factions together. Their efforts were concentrated into an astonishing single month.

The Devolution plans, as such, have not stood the test of time but, with effort from all sides, a fragile truce was achieved and a virtual end to the <>. This was an enormous achievement. The papers are an object lesson in how patient diplomacy and negotiation can work, even in the most intractable of situations.