The embattled Ulster Unionist Party is slowly rebuilding behind the scenes, even if those outside its “inner circles” cannot see it, leader Mike Nesbitt has said.

A former member of the Ulster Unionist Party has likened homosexuality to paedophilia.

The former Ulster Unionist MP Ken Maginnis has quit the party, he announced today.

It used to be the Freemasons who were famous for their handshakes — but that was before the Irish peace process came along.

I was chatting with an elderly relative, who leaned in close to say the son of a friend had ‘turned queer’.

The party whip has been withdrawn from Ulster Unionist peer Ken Maginnis after he linked homosexuality to bestiality.

The number of police officers recruited in the North will be low for the next eight years, it was claimed today.

THERE is no excuse for the bad manners shown to Tony Blair when he went to Easons in Dublin to sign copies of his memoir, A Journey.

ULSTER Unionist Ken Maginnis accused the Saville Inquiry and the British government of being “one-eyed” in its emphasis on just 13 of the 180 violent deaths in the North in the preceding year.

Two leading unionists have accused President Mary McAleese of trying to rewrite history by suggesting that Irish people joined the British Army before the First World War to escape poverty.

History was made today at a meeting of British-Irish body when it was attended by unionist politicians for the first time.

The Ulster Unionist Party is set to break with history today by taking part in a meeting of the British-Irish Inter-Parliamentary Body in Newcastle, England.

IN THE concluding sentence of his magisterial new history of Ireland from the French revolution to the present day, Professor Paul Bew wonders if, “as ethnic rage gives way to ethnic vanity, is it really possible that the enmities of Irish history are losing their power to hurt and destroy”?

The North’s Police Ombudsman is carrying out a witch-hunt against RUC officers who defended the public against terror, a unionist peer claimed today.

Autistic children in Northern Ireland are waiting almost three years to be diagnosed, it emerged today.

Loved by some, disparaged by others: few can dispute Mo Mowlam had a massive impact on the North, writes Dan McGinn

When Mo Mowlam became Northern Ireland Secretary, she may well have had her hero Winston Churchill in mind – and his declaration that history would be kind to him because he intended to write it.

Two men were today being questioned about the murder of top loyalist John Gregg.

Ulster Unionist Ken Maginnis has fired the latest salvo in an extraordinary war of words with the office of the North’s Police Ombudsman.

The Ulster Unionists and Sinn Fein were today preparing for a Belfast High Court showdown over a hotly disputed General Election result.

A spokesman for a group of former British spies has said the North’s Police Ombudsman has evidence that the RUC was aware of the Omagh bomb plot two days before the atrocity claimed 31 lives.

The Northern Ireland Ombudsman hit back tonight over a demand for her resignation for ordering an inquiry into the police handling of Omagh bomb atrocity.

Five hundred new jobs are to be created in a £10m expansion to a Northern Ireland leisure shopping village, it was announced today.

Unionists should use their vote as a weapon to ‘‘sweep away’’ their leaders who have failed them since the Good Friday Agreement, DUP leader Reverend Ian Paisley claimed today.

Sinn Fein’s Fermanagh and South Tyrone candidate Michelle Gildernew has seized upon the IRA hunger striker’s stunning victory in the 1981 by-election as a template for republican success.

The murder conviction of a former member of the Ulster Defence Regiment was today referred back to the Court of Appeal in the North for a third time.

More than 300 people from the Republic have applied to join the new policing service in Northern Ireland, it was revealed today.

The Government was under pressure tonight to take action against the largest loyalist paramilitary group, the Ulster Defence Association, amid allegations that it has broken its ceasefire.

The Ulster Democratic Party leader Gary McMichael has called on the UDA to clarify the status of its ceasefire.

Unionist and nationalists have clashed over demands for the British Parachute Regiment to leave Co Fermanagh following an incursion into the Republic.

The Ulster Unionist party is preparing itself for a potentially divisive debate over who will stand as its candidate in the Fermanagh-South Tyrone seat at the next British general election.

The Democratic Unionist Party may step aside in three northern constituencies held by anti-agreement MPs in the forthcoming British general election.

Sports ministers from both sides of the border were among thousands of mourners at the funerals of car rally champion Bertie Fisher and his son and daughter.

Northern Ireland Minister Adam Ingram is among three candidates likely to be considered to take over as Northern Ireland Secretary from Peter Mandelson.

Tony Blair is having talks with Northern Ireland's party leaders amid heightening fears of a terrorist offensive by dissident republicans.

David Trimble received a boost today when UUP vice chairman James Cooper formally put his name forward for the Fermanagh/South Tyrone seat being vacated by Ken Maginnis at the next British general election.

Supporters and opponents of the Good Friday Agreement in the Ulster Unionist Party are certain to hotly contest the position of veteran MP Ken Maginnis who retires at the next election.

Ulster Unionist MP Ken Maginnis has announced he is to stand down at the next General Election - but insists his party could hold on to his Fermanagh and South Tyrone seat.