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THE SATURDAY INTERVIEW: MARK DURKANStepping down today as SDLP leader to focus on his family and his work as an MP, the man who took over from John Hume is philosophical about his party’s slide since the 1998 halcyon days, writes DAN KEENAN, Northern News Editor

‘I SAID WHEN I became leader that if I did 10 years that would be enough, if not too long.” Mark Durkan, leader of the SDLP – until today – now reckons eight years and three months is long enough. He turns 50 later this spring, and that has prompted some reflection on life, home, politics, the future of democracy in Ireland and the ways of the world. He wants now to concentrate on being MP for Foyle and getting stuck in to policy and legislation, and to leave the party leadership, which some colleagues say never really suited him, to someone else. He won’t come out and say it, but it’s clear that that aspect of his political career has run its course.