Trimble fights for agreement’s future

If canvassing were an Olympic sport, then Ulster Unionist leader David Trimble would be a certain gold medallist.

On a brilliant summer’s night in Banbridge, Co Down, he sets off at a rip-roaring pace like Linford Christie darting from bungalow to bungalow past the immaculately manicured lawns of Thorn Heights.

He leaves stumbling in his wake a rather unhealthy pack of journalists shadowing him on the campaign trail.

David Trimble is in ‘‘Flymo country’’ targeting a key group for the UUP in their battle to protect the Good Friday Agreement from the Rev Ian Paisley’s Democratic Unionists.

These are middle-class voters the UUP needs to attract people who stayed away from the ballot box in recent elections but turned out in 1998 to endorse the Agreement in the May referendum.

Accompanied by his wife Daphne and a team from his Upper Bann constituency, this is Trimble’s fourth campaign for Westminster with one by-election in 1990 and two General Elections under his belt.

This time there is a different edge. The DUP and its candidate David Simpson believe animosity towards the Agreement and anger over the treatment of the Orange Order will mean a tighter contest.

Mr Trimble’s involvement in the Stormont Executive with Sinn Fein has also made him a hate figure for some unionists. In Banbridge, two days previously, a man tried to break the First Minister’s thumb while pretending to shake his hand.

In Thorn Heights, the response is a lot warmer in what should be a happy hunting ground.

Several people greet him on the doorstep, wishing him the best for June 7 and offering words of encouragement.

A couple in their 40s are startled to find the First Minister and his entourage on their doorstep.

The husband tells the UUP leader: ‘‘You have our support and I hope you give (Sinn Fein’s Martin) McGuinness and those boys a run on their obligations to the Agreement.’’

In a reference to his resignation threat as First Minister, Mr Trimble agrees: ‘‘Well, we have found you have to keep the pressure on republicans to get them to move.’’

The UUP leader takes a momentary break from canvassing to do a live television interview from the home of his election agent, John Dobson.

Perched on a blue sofa in the living room, he switches comfortably into soundbite mode, providing short, snappy answers to Adam Boulton of Sky News.

After the interview, he remarks with mock indignation: ‘‘He’s just gone over to Charles Kennedy referring to him as the other ginger leader!’ ‘‘

Back on the campaign trail, a man clutching a school book on the 19th Century Fenian movement prompts a ‘‘true story’’ from Mr Trimble about the ‘‘Fenian Orangeman from Newtownards’’.

But it is the trials and tribulations of the modern day Orange Order that is convincing the DUP they can win the seat.

The constituency houses Portadown - that bastion of Protestant Orangeism and home to the Drumcree marching dispute.

As the DUP canvassing machine sweeps through the village of Waringstown, David Simpson, who has never run for office before, is amazed by the good will he has received on the doorsteps.

A couple in their thirties rush to their door to greet the DUP candidate, their three children peering out from between them as the adults discuss the state of Orange Order.

Noting moves to expel pro-Agreement Ulster Unionist MEP Jim Nicholson from his lodge, Mr Simpson is told by the father: ‘‘I’m 100% behind that.

‘‘All those guys selling this country down the tubes should be forced out. That’s the way it should be.’’

The DUP candidate observes afterwards: ‘‘The Orange factor is a big thing in Upper Bann.

‘‘From the Orange perspective, people are hurt that people who say they are taking a stand for unionism and are within the institution are happy to allow Sinn Fein/IRA into the government of Northern Ireland.’’

In nationalism, the departure of the SDLP’s Brid Rodgers for West Tyrone has given the contest for pole position in that community a keener edge.

The SDLP is fielding former Craigavon Mayor Dolores Kelly but Sinn Fein believes local Assembly member Dara O’Hagan will benefit from Mrs Rodgers’ departure.

David Simpson argues David Trimble’s pitch for nationalist votes for the UUP at the start of the campaign was with Upper Bann in mind.

‘‘David Trimble has called for the nationalist vote because without it, it is almost impossible for him to take this seat.

‘‘All the pundits have been going back to the Westminster figures of 1997 when we had no Agreement. But if you look at what he got then, he had 20,836 votes but that dropped to 12,000 first preference votes for him in the Assembly with another 2,500 or so for UUP candidates.

‘‘However, if you take the total anti-Agreement vote in that election, you see there is around 14,000. So there’s a lot to play for.’’

The gospel singer believes the Rev William McCrea’s victory in the South Antrim by-election last September can be replicated across several Ulster Unionist constituencies.

His campaign manager David McConaghie detects a rising wave of anti-Trimble sentiment in the constituency.

With many pundits predicting the DUP will eat into the Ulster Unionist leader’s 9,232 majority, Mr McConaghie believes the margin of victory will ‘‘either be a spread of 1,500 for Trimble to 500 for us’’.

‘‘There are still a lot of ‘undecideds’ which makes this contest difficult to read definitively but we are getting a sense that folk are beginning to ask about an alternative to Trimble.

‘‘If we beat Trimble, it will be the second item on the national news behind whoever wins across the water but it will have reverberations around the world. We get the sense that it can happen. It is possible.’’

Candidates contesting the election are: Outgoing MP David Trimble (UUP); Dolores Kelly (SDLP); David Simpson (DUP); Dara O’Hagan (Sinn Fein); and Tom French (Workers Party).

At the 1997 General Election the result was: D. Trimble (UUP) elected with 20,836 votes; B. Rodgers (SDLP) 11,584; D. O’Hagan (Sinn Fein) 5,773; M. Carrick (DUP) 3,617; T. French (WP) 554; B. Price (Con) 433; J. Lyons (NLP) 108.

At the 1998 Assembly election the UUP (with four candidates) gained 14,559 first preference votes; SDLP (2) 11,947; DUP (2) 7,812; Sinn Fein (2) 7,216; Independent Un Watson (1) 4,885; Alliance (1) 1,556; UKUP (1) 1,405; Labour (1) 439; WP (1) 270; Independent Loyalist McClinton (1) 207; Independent Silcock (1) 101; Natural Law (1) 38.