Trimble’s final fall from party’s fractured ruins

ULSTER Unionists were outraged during the election campaign when the Rev Ian Paisley claimed David Trimble was counting down the “time to the electric chair and the rope”.

Baby-faced barrister Rodney McCune, a rising star in the party, claimed the comments sent a chilling message to voters.

However, since the DUP's emergence in the November 2003 Assembly Election as the strongest voice in unionism, it has been hard to escape the impression that David Trimble was biding his time as leader of the Ulster Unionists.