Up-beat Paisley offers hope for power-sharing

HOPES of a power-sharing deal in the North rose dramatically last night as Ian Paisley appeared unusually upbeat over a devolution breakthrough.

The DUP leader’s markedly less confrontational stance came ahead of crunch Downing Street talks with British Prime Minister Tony Blair today.

Mr Paisley said the DUP’s sweeping success in the Assembly elections allowed him room to manoeuvre, despite personal friends strongly disagreeing with him.

“But the electorate fortunately has agreed. It has strengthened my hand — I can afford to go further forward now with things, because I am confident that the people are with me and I have always been a peoples’ man,” he said after a meeting with Northern Secretary Peter Hain.

The DUP leader insisted there was a way forward if all parties backed the St Andrews Agreement, but hinted the March 26 deadline may be too soon.

“If IRA/Sinn Féin say ‘yes’, they are going to go that way, the battle, at the end of the day, will be won,” he said.

The renewed optimism came as Mr Blair was accused of treating the late Mo Mowlam “like s**t” when she was northern secretary, by former SDLP deputy first minister Seamus Mallon. He also claimed Mr Blair would “buy anybody and sell anybody” in steering the peace process.

The revelation came as Ms Mowlam’s successor in the North, Peter Mandelson, also launched an extraordinary attack on Mr Blair.

Mr Mandelson accused the prime minister of “conceding and capitulating” to republicans in order to drive the peace initiative forward.

“In order to keep the process in motion, Tony would be sort of dangling carrots and possibilities in front of the republicans which I thought could never be delivered, that it was unreasonable and irresponsible to intimate that you could when you knew that you couldn’t,” Mr Mandelson told the Guardian newspaper.

He claimed he refused Mr Blair’s demand to write a secret note to Sinn Féin offering a form of amnesty to IRA fugitives, among other “sweeties”.

The letter was eventually sent and the concessions were formally offered to Sinn Féin at the Weston Park talks in July 2001, six months after Mr Mandelson was forced to resign from the British Cabinet.

“Weston Park was basically about conceding and capitulating in a whole number of different ways to republican demands — their shopping list. It was a disaster because it was too much for them,” Mr Mandelson said.

The now EU Trade Commissioner also criticised Mr Blair’s treatment of Sinn Féin leaders.

“When Gerry Adams and Martin McGuinness entered the room you were expected to stand up. They were senior military, they were top brass. Apart from being leaders of Sinn Féin they were leaders of the military council,” he said.

Sinn Féin MPs have always denied being IRA leaders.

The 108 members of the Belfast Assembly met for the first time yesterday to sign the register.

Mr Blair is also holding separate talks with Sinn Féin president Gerry Adams in London today.