A pre-election UK Budget offers more good news than bad but the deficit still looms in the background.

Give-aways were in short supply as Alasdair Darling took to the despatch box on 24 March although it was clear that, the financial news that day could have been a lot worse. Labour’s pre-election preparations meant that deep spending cuts or tax rises were avoided, at least to satisfy potential voters across the water.

Darling’s main headline was axing stamp duty on house sales under £250,000 to help first-time buyers, paid by higher duty on sales worth over £1 million. Motorists can also take some satisfaction in a gradual 3p duty rise at the pumps, just up 1p in April. Pints and cigarettes both received expected price increases.

A drop in the estimated deficit – down to £163 billion from £178 billion – is naturally a move in the right direction but represents a rather modest fall given the size of the remaining debt. Treasury figures foresee a much larger cut to £131 billion next year, decreasing to £74 billion by 2014-2015.

Nothing was being done to clear up the economic mess, the Tories taunted, while the Lib Dems said both main parties were in “denial” about the necessary cuts.

No new personal tax rises will fill the financial hole, although last year’s 50 per cent rate was to take effect from 1 April. Corporation tax also stayed steady.

The real financial risk for Northern Ireland lay in the Chancellor’s warning that the toughest spending cuts in decades will take shape from 2011 onwards – and that will ring true whatever party is in power.

This Budget promises slight increases in child tax credits, continued support to help businesses spread out their tax payments and £60 million for wind energy development, which employs 3,800 people locally The Government also wants everyone to have a bank account and a guarantee to make that happen was also included.

Increased spending by UK Government departments will also result in an extra £33 million allocation to the Executive, although this must be seen in the light of a £367 million shortfall in the province’s public finances.

As tradition dictated, the Chancellor commended the Budget to the House of Commons yet he was also sending a message to the country in his closing remarks.

A choice, in his view, existed between Conservatives “suffocating” growth or Labour, which had been consistently “right” about the recession and recovery.

David Cameron, for his part, contrasted a “completely out of steam” outgoing government with his party’s “energy” to get the economy going again.

With the general election widely expected on 6 May, that judgment will soon be made by voters across Britain and, to a lesser extent, in Northern Ireland. The poll itself means that several Budget measures may be shelved as Parliament will quickly run out of debating time.

Depending on the ballot box, the final finances may well be decided in a snap Conservatives post-election Budget or negotiated by a hung Parliament which could give local MPs a say on public finances that they would otherwise not have.

On Friday 5 February, the four main men stood in front of the cameras at Hillsborough, speaking on the deal which had been reached over 120 hours of negotiations and countless meals in The Plough.

The two visiting PMs’ expressions could not have been more removed from Thursday of the previous week when they took their leave. Both men’s tone mixed contentment with relief. Gordon Brown said the agreement would pave the way for “a new form of co-operation and mutual respect” between the two communities.

The deal, he said, belonged to all of Northern Ireland, adding: “It affects, more than ever before, their future.”

Brian Cowen said the 21-page document was an “encouraging report”, adding that he believed that “fair and balanced compromises” were needed for the future. He welcomed the work done on parading and praised the “wisdom and leadership” of all the main parties. The agreement, he said, would be the life-blood of the institutions for the years to come.

Returning First Minister Peter Robinson called it a “good day for Northern Ireland” because the perceived progress made in the weeks leading up to the agreement had been secured.

Tangible evidence that the province will not be going back to the past is shown in the agreement, making for a “stable and peaceful Northern Ireland and a better future for us all”.

Even after the exacerbation the public had shown throughout the talks, and indeed since, Robinson said that Northern Ireland can “often forget how far we’ve come in recent years,” and added that “we can’t become complacent.”

“For too long we have been distracted by the issue of policing and justice. The deal did not come quickly or easily but will be all the more secure for the time invested in it,” he said. “Politics is not a spectator sport, but politics is working.”

Pre-empting his detractors he added: “There are some who will play politics with this agreement and that is understandable but we have not been rushing.”

“This might just be the day that the political process in the North came of age,” Martin McGuinness offered. He also revealed that with so much attention on the talks inside the castle, “the last thing we want to do when the eyes of the world are on us is fail.”

He also echoed Robinson’s sentiments, adding: “It is hardly surprising for people that it has been difficult. The reality is that I am an Irish republican, I believe in a united Ireland and [unionists] want to retain the union with England. This should not mean we are incapable of respecting one another, of treating each other equally.”

His party, he added, is “utterly determined” to working with unionists in good faith and good heart. “I want to work with Peter for the good of our entire community. That is what Sinn Féin is about.”

Then SDLP leader Mark Durkan said simply that his party welcomed the devolution of justice powers, though “we wish it could have been sooner”.

He did say, however, that the party would proof-read the document, “not to pose problems, but to pre-empt them”.

Durkan also restated his opposition to the “exclusion of nationalists from government and the departure of the Good Friday Agreement”.

Reg Empey, whose party largely did not take part in the talks, criticised the way in which parties outside of the big two were not kept in the loop.

“I received this document at 11 o’clock this morning. I had no previous sight of its contents and as I have repeatedly stated, the Ulster Unionist Party has not been involved in any of the negotiations which led to this agreement,” he said, adding “the DUP and Sinn Féin have taken 120 hours to negotiate this document so we will take as long as it takes to come to our conclusions.”

The deal itself is analysed in depth on pages 18-20.

Pupils who sat the Catholic schooldominated GL assessments navigated two multiple choice papers on 2 November while the AQE’s first two exams were on 14 and 28 November.

For pupils taking the AQE exam, only their best two scores will be taken into account. Both GL Assessment papers will count.

Sixty-eight schools rejected those and instead pressed ahead with academic selection.

Caitríona Ruane’s guidelines outlined her wish to see an equal proportion of children who are free school mealseligible (FSME) to be admitted to schools as applied to them i.e. if 25 per cent of all applicants to a school were FSME then 25 per cent of entrants should be FSME.

Only 5 per cent of pupils taking the entrance tests fall into that category but at present only 6 per cent of pupils at grammar schools claim free school meals. These factors alone, John O’Dowd said, expose what “a socially unjust system selection is”.

All results will be available to all pupils on 6 February.