"I VOTE for Sinn Fein is a vote for violence." It's one of those strong statements one's own supporters at the time describe as "statesmanlike". But it's also one of those statements with a built in boomerang action. It may look, leaving you, as if it's going to take down droves of enemies. But it may pass over them and come back to clout you.
When the Taoiseach, before the Northern elections, so defined a vote for Sinn Fein, he may not have anticipated that 127,000 people (or roughly 16 per cent of the votes polled) would east their votes that way, and in hindsight he must regret slandering such a significant number of citizens. Even if the vote had not been so decisive, though, it was a simplistic expression of a naive Southern view which basically assumes that Sinn Fein equals the IRA and the IRA equals Canary Wharf.
The issues are infinitely more subtle, and there's a case for suggesting it is the heavy handed naivety percolating down from John Bruton which has turned the peace process from the optimistic purposeful activity it was at the beginning into the self sustaining pointless posturing it has become.
That heavy handed naivety led to arms decommissioning being set as a qualifier for inclusion in talks, even though everybody with any experience of or insight into, Northern realities knew (and the Mitchell Principles affirmed) that Sinn Fein could not meet that condition, and that without Sinn Fein any talks - to quote the immortal phrase of Fergus Finlay are not worth a penny candle.
What has emerged in this election is no paltry vote for a group which can be swept to one side. As stakeholders in the future, Sinn Fein must be smiling grimly at the Taoiseach's volte face which now sees him saying it can be in talks by June if there's a ceasefire. Big of him, is the unspoken comment.
The new Northern Secretary let the Taoiseach down gently last Thursday when she ruled out June 3rd as a date for Sinn Fein participation in talks. As gently as possible, she was indicating that this is not on, not realistic.
If the best is to be made of the results of both the Northern and British elections, it would help if the Irish general election were to happen quickly and to provide a decisive end result. A new ceasefire has to be put together, and although there are difficult people to manage, although it won't happen easily, there is still a fair degree of confidence that it can be put together.
The fact that Tony Blair's new government has a massive majority greatly strengthens its hand. The unionists will be slow to push against that big wall. It was so much easier when the Conservatives were riven with divisions and rocking from one scandal to the next.
I would be optimistic, too, about the strengthening of the support for the political realists of the PUP. There is a real possibility that the paramilitaries may be more realistic and more open to change than some of the older, more entrenched unionist politicians.
And then there's Dr Marjorie Mowlam. Mo Mowlam. Breath of fresh air. Well informed. Close to Blair. Down to earth. Speaks her mind. Forthright. Warm.
Arguably the best about Mo Mowlam is that she's still learning. Too many of those who have held the crucial Northern portfolio have been at the stage in their careers when they are effectively living off intellectual capital laid down much earlier. Not so, in this case.
On her appointment as Opposition spokeswoman she took her time to find her feet, but her performance improved, steadily, as she came to terms with the issues. It is a content driven performance: this woman operates from instinct and truth, as her handling of her illness proves.
Oh, to be a fly on the wall as those who have grown used to Sir Patrick Mayhew come to terms with his total opposite. My own experience of Mayhew was of a pompous, straitlaced figure given to monologues and therefore difficult to have an informal conversation with.
The first time we met John Major In London, Major kept calling Mayhew "Paddy". It threw me every time, the notion of this high Tory responding to a name so frequently used as a pejorative term for an Irishman. After the summit had finished and we were walking towards the room where the press conference was to be held, Dick Spring revealed he'd been thinking along the same lines.
"What's the betting," he muttered, "which of us is first going to call Mayhew Paddy?"
Had either of us put money on it, we'd have lost it: it never happened in my time at the Anglo Irish Conference.
Now, into that vital role comes Mo Mowlam, wasting no time in talking about reform of the RUC as a priority for her and dismaying unionists, who had made it quite clear that they would prefer someone else as Secretary of State.
Will the mandarins get to her and to Blair, or are they both strong enough to take them on? The civil servants, both in the Northern Ireland Office and in Whitehall, would have been opposed to many of the steps Major took prior to the publication of the Downing Street Declaration. The special trust there was between Reynolds and Major undoubtedly encouraged Major on more than one occasion to overrule both civil servants and advisers.
THAT capacity to take risks needs to be rediscovered, although I would not expect Blair to act more precipitately on Northern Ireland. Indeed, the new Prime Minister has already demonstrated caution in the aftermath of his meeting with John Bruton.
Many people would have expected the two to immediately and jointly face the press, as Major and Reynolds always did. That didn't happen and, like the dog that didn't bark, undoubtedly carries its own significance. My belief is that Tony Blair was being non committal.
Of course, the first real test will be the marching season. The Orangemen will try to teach the Labour government a lesson - "Yez can't move without us". That would be fine with a government with a majority of 50 which could be intimidated. Not so now.
There was a huge economic cost to Drumcree in 1996, a drop of 36 per cent in the numbers of tourists to Northern Ireland compared with 1995. But there was a moral cost, too. Remember the shots of the Church of Ireland in Drumcree in the background of frank flouting of the law? The shots flashed on to the television screens of the world?
The Church of Ireland Synod next week will be watched with interest to see what action it takes about the profound damage that did to the reputation of the Church of Ireland.
The Garvaghy Road is likely to provide Mo Mowlam and her Prime Minister with the first example of a dilemma without obvious or easy compromise. Blair put himself forward to the electorate as a strong man, strong on law and order. There's no doubt that the official advice to him in relation to Drumcree will be: don't make a stand because you won't be able to hold it.
An early and tough test. It would help if our Government were in a position to give well informed, sensitive support to Blair's thinking, rather than simplistic slogans likely to polarise rather than help.