Inside Politics SOS
It's a Saturday and I'm in the office. But before there's a collective outpouring of sympathy, the real plaudits should go to Martina Purdy, political correspondent and occasional blog sitter, who stayed up until two o'clock in the morning standing outside the Martyrs' Memorial Church on the Ravenhill Road in Belfast waiting for the outcome of a meeting of Free Presbyterian Church elders. When the Free Ps left they told her that Ian Paisley would step down as moderator in January. It looks like a compromise move to avoid a split in the church over the Stormont power sharing deal. So who will succeed the Big Man? His son, Ian Kyle? Or the Reverend David McIlveen?
Does the church move have any wider political significance? The Secretary of State (or SOS for short) Shaun Woodward is my guest for Inside Politics which is broadcast at 12.45 on Radio Ulster. He has just told me that he's not concerned the Free Ps' decision will impact on the stability of the Stormont deal. He also says that an early election is "highly improbable" and links the willingness of local politicians to agree the transfer of policing and justice powers to their ability to attract economic investment.
I also ask him about Margaret Ritchie's October 9th deadline to the UDA. He appears to back her, but adds the caveal that "deadlines are a tool not an end in themselves."
I'm 
