Early days for auditor suggestion

Another meeting of the Ulster Unionist Council looms, so invariably another proposition is on the table to bolster First Minister David Trimble’s permanently tenuous position as the majority Unionist leader.

This time around, he wants an auditor appointed to monitor paramilitary ceasefires, something which the British Government is considering and which Mr Trimble will be advocating when he meets President Bush’s special adviser on Northern Ireland, Richard Haass, today.

Mr Trimble has another crucial meeting with the UUC tomorrow week, and the idea of a ceasefires auditor, first mooted by Alliance, is the latest in a series of gambits he has produced to keep Unionists’ confidence in the peace process.