David Trimble – the minister who is first to run away from reality
The British prime minister could have spent time with far more engaging people such as Igor Ivanov, the Russian Foreign Minister, or with Queen Elizabeth at their regular weekly meeting which had to be cancelled so that Mr Blair could attend the Hillsborough talks along with Taoiseach Bertie Ahern.
The queen could have done with a friendly shoulder to cry on, too, after getting the news that her favourite dressmaker, Hardy Amies, had made his final stitch in time and treaded his way off this mortal coil.
Instead, Mr Blair had to go to Belfast where most of the parties who had signed up for the Good Friday Agreement were meeting once again to try and get it up and running.
The only person up and running was David Trimble once again. At this stage, he is a serial walker-out from crucial meetings.
Unless he's getting his own way, his attention span at these meetings is about as long as George Dubya's when the subject of global warming comes up.
With the negotiations reaching a critical stage, and a buoyant feeling that there was a good chance a deal would be made to restore devolved government in the North, the UUP leader did what he does best of all a runner.
He took everybody by surprise, especially Tony Blair and Bertie Ahern, but by now they should remember that David Trimble thinks he owns the ball and can go home for his tea at any time, taking the ball with him.
But he wasn't going home for his tea. He was, said he over his shoulder, off to London where he had "urgent parliamentary business" to attend to.
The Taoiseach missed a Cabinet meeting to stay in Belfast and facilitate the negotiations, which were reputedly going to break the impasse.
Given that the prime minister believed the business in Belfast was sufficiently urgent to miss his usual chat with the queen, not to mind taking time out from organising a war, it's rather intriguing to imagine what the UUP leader characterises as "urgent." It is most certainly not anything to do with sharing power with a government that involves Sinn Féin.
The two governments, and all the parties who signed up to the Good Friday Agreement, had spent two days trying to extract the peace process from the trough it had been collapsed into since last October. Since then direct rule from London had been reinstated, and with the elections for the Northern Ireland Assembly due to be held on May 1 next, there was severe pressure to make progress.
And serious progress there was before David Trimble trundled out the door, to the utter astonishment of both prime ministers. According to Brid Rodgers of the SDLP, it was "awful" to think that the negotiations had got to the last 5% without being able to clinch a deal.
The chairman of Sinn Féin, Mitchel McLaughlin, said they were all in the ballpark of an overall deal so, as anticipated, the prospects were definitely looking brighter.
That was the whole point of Mr Trimble's grandstand disappearing trick.
He staged it at a crucial time on Tuesday, just before 7pm, as all the other parties were preparing to hold roundtable discussions.
Mr Trimble doesn't care a whit about who he's walking out on. We all remember the excruciating embarrassment when he did exactly that not too long ago when the then US President Bill Clinton was delivering a major address in front of 6,000 people at the Odyssey Centre in Belfast.
Being conscious of other peoples' sensibilities, or even common politeness and good manners, is not exactly one of his noticeable virtues.
About the only thing that can grab Mr Trimble's attention is the Ulster Unionist Council, a conglomeration of every conceivable shade of unionism, which is the governing body of the UUP.
All 850 members of it and they govern!
Whether they tell him what to have for his breakfast I'm not too sure, but they certainly tell him how to conduct his negotiations. It could be argued that as the governing body of the UUP, they are entitled to lay down policy.
That may be right insofar as it affects the UUP, but up to last October David Trimble was the first minister, and in that role he represented the entire people of Northern Ireland, not just those of his own political persuasion.
The problem was that as first minister, he also wore another hat as leader of the UUP, which inclined him towards bouts of schizophrenia during which he could never decide which role was more important. He was lucky in that he had the Ulster Unionist Council to tell him and in no uncertain manner where his first and only loyalty lay.
Before he could make any major decisions, David Trimble had to refer, and defer, to the council, and the same terms of reference applied during this week's talks at Hillsborough Castle.
Essentially those terms amount to no co-operation to get the institutions of the Executive and the Assembly up and running again if it means having to share power with Sinn Féin.
No matter what way the unionists try to gloss it up, that is now, and always will be, a fundamental problem for them. For the day they willingly accept that Sinn Féin has a democratic right to belong to a power-sharing government is the day that they finally concede they no longer 'own' Northern Ireland.
That is essentially their problem, and something which too many unionists in positions of power and influence cannot conceive ever admitting.
Such is their intransigence that they can conveniently ignore the fact that the majority of the people of Northern Ireland want to go the route of peace and live a normal life. And they are in the majority.
Again, during the talks this week, much reference was made to trust, and the lack of it. Trust is a two-way street and all sides must be prepared to share it. As exemplified by Mr Trimble, trust is what everybody else places in him, but the Ulster Unionist Council will tell him who to trust.
With 850 members on that council, consensus is rather difficult to come by especially if it entails the common good of the wider community in Northern Ireland.
CONNECT WITH US TODAY
Be the first to know the latest news and updates
