The battle lines were drawn at the multi-party talks in Lancaster House yesterday when the UUP tore up the Framework Document, rejecting it as "irrelevant" to the talks process. The SDLP said the joint government paper on North-South bodies, presented to the parties yesterday, was "fully consistent" with the Framework Document.
The paper itself set out, in the words of the Northern Ireland Secretary, Dr Mo Mowlam, the best possible assessment of where agreement might be found between the parties on North-South structures. The paper on Strand Two was not a firm blueprint: rather it would facilitate "open and meaningful negotiations".
In a dramatic press conference at Lancaster House the leader of the UUP, Mr David Trimble, rejected the governments' proposals as "not significant". Even if the party was not alone in its belief, Mr Trimble said, the party was perfectly capable of giving its own, damning answer to the two governments.
In a comment that drew gasps of surprise in the press conference at Lancaster House, he referred to a familiar Ulster expression: "We're perfectly capable, should the need arise, to say no . . . After all it's going back to what we know best."
The rub for the Ulster Unionists came with the SDLP's interpretation of the paper. In its press conference the SDLP said the paper was fully consistent with the Framework Document and a "firm basis on which to negotiate the precise powers, functions and compositions" of North-South bodies.
The SDLP leader, Mr John Hume, said it was "utterly groundless" to believe that North-South bodies would be subservient to east-west arrangements and a Northern assembly. In a statement denounced by Mr Trimble as astonishing, the SDLP said it believed the paper established executive powers for North-South bodies "whatever way you want to look at it".
The SDLP's deputy leader, Mr Seamus Mallon, told the press conference it was crucial for all parties in the talks to engage fully in the process. He believed a North-South council of ministers would be independent of a Northern assembly and east-west arrangements. He added the proposals were on the table for negotiation by all the parties.
Round One went to the SDLP. Then up stepped Mr Trimble and Mr Donaldson to knock them down in Round Two. The "desperate effort" of the SDLP to read back into the paper sections of the Framework Document that had been removed - namely a paragraph referring to the term "executive" - would cut no ice.
Mr Trimble sensed a moment for plain talking. If anyone thought there would be agreement on the basis of the Framework Document they were "not living in the real world".
If anyone was not clear at this stage just how agitated Mr Donaldson had become they didn't have to wait much longer. He ripped the document into two pieces and said calmly: "That's what we think of the Framework Document."