A tough meeting is in prospect in Downing Street this morning when the British Prime Minister, Mr Tony Blair, and Northern Ireland's First Minister, Mr David Trimble, review the political and security situation.
The meeting - the first substantive one between the two since the conclusion of the Mitchell review last November - is expected to be dominated by troop deployment and security arrangements in Northern Ireland, the future of policing, and decommissioning.
Senior unionist politicians privately suspect the British government is engaged in behind-the-scenes negotiations with Sinn Fein in an attempt to secure some movement on IRA disarmament. Even as representatives of the Police Federation handed into Downing Street a 350,000-signatory petition demanding the retention of the RUC's name and badge, authoritative unionist sources confirmed they have won no significant concessions from Mr Peter Mandelson.
One sign of the growing tensions between the Ulster Unionists and the Northern Ireland Office came yesterday when a press spokesman was obliged to deny suggestions that Mr Mandelson or his officials had intervened to block an attempt by the federation to have its delegation received at Number 10.
Although Mr Mandelson is said to have come to no firm conclusions, the growing belief is that he plans to make a statement of intent - effectively committing the British government to the full implementation of the main recommendations of the Patten report - around the end of this month. Unionists still hope he will agree to an alternative title to the proposed Northern Ireland Police Service. But it seems clear the Secretary of State will not bow to unionist pressure on other key areas, such as the creation of local police partnership boards, which Mr Trimble and his colleagues say could see paramilitaries assume some local police functions.
Instead of abandoning the Patten proposals, Mr Mandelson seems likely to seek to reassure unionists by building clear and precise safeguards into legislation effecting the reforms. And in the Commons yesterday Mr Mandelson told Mr Ken Maginnis MP, he would "do nothing to diminish the ethos or operational efficiency of the RUC". Mr Mandelson also gave the clearest signal yet that he might favour a scheme by which paramilitaries would secure weapons in underground bunkers and have them subject to regular inspection by the International Decommissioning Commission.
The Northern Ireland Office dismissed reports last weekend that such a scheme was already on offer from the IRA. Yesterday Mr Mandelson referred to weapons either being destroyed "or made permanently inaccessible".
Official sources later explained this concept was consistent with the provisions of the 1997 Act, whereby the first step in a decommissioning scheme would require notifying the commission of the quantity and location of weapons to be decommissioned - after which the commission could issue instructions for the safeguarding of the weapons.
Although there is no evidence yet that the IRA intends to comply with the effective deadline set by Mr Trimble's commitment to reconvene the Ulster Unionist Council early next month, it seems clear that such a scheme - accompanied by an initial act of decommissioning - would be enough to keep Mr Trimble and his colleagues in the power-sharing Executive until May.
However, party sources insist the securing of arms dumps in this way would only serve as an interim measure.
Mr Mandelson will attend today's meeting. Mr Trimble will be accompanied by Mr John Taylor, Sir Reg Empey and Mr Ken Maginnis.