Risk and uncertainty are commonplace in political life. For Mr David Trimble, leader of the Ulster Unionist Party, they have been an abiding feature of his time in office, as he has faced down repeated challenges to his authority and leadership.
His victory this weekend over dissidents at the Ulster Unionist Council by a steady margin of 55 to 45 per cent is one of the most convincing of these victories. It confirms his leadership, strengthens his position and ought to prepare the ground for elections to a new assembly as soon as possible.
The great uncertainty hanging over the North's politics in recent months has been whether Mr Trimble would survive as UUP leader. The challenge mounted by Mr Jeffrey Donaldson, Mr David Burnside and the Rev Martin Smyth, who refused to accept the International Monitoring Commission (IMC) proposed by the British and Irish governments to assess paramilitary disarmament and British demilitarisation, was in effect a leadership issue. This impression was reinforced by widespread talk of an alliance between Sir Reg Empey and Mr Donaldson. Until the issue was resolved the British Prime Minister, Mr Blair, was persuaded not to hold elections, while Sinn Féin and the IRA found in it a perfect excuse to delay the major move towards completing arms decommissioning everyone involved agrees is necessary.
Whatever risks attended the holding of elections before Mr Trimble's position was clarified (and the Government was never persuaded they were sufficient reason to postpone them) have surely now been reduced to the point that they should be held. Were they to be again delayed the political advantages flowing from this significant Trimble victory could dissipate once again. There can be no certainty that his pro-Agreement unionists will maintain their position in elections; but his victory surely indicates that the kind of support for it well expressed over the weekend by Lady Hermon holds relatively firm and could well be sustained at the polls.
Her appeal to Sinn Féin and the IRA to cast off their paramilitary associations is also well taken. They, too, face the risk that whatever initiative they plan could be undermined if repudiated by a new UUP leadership, or by a DUP surge in the polls. Presumably they prefer Mr Trimble to that - and they know that without a convincing move to disarm and join the Policing Board their credibility as governing partners in a new executive will be undermined. The IMC was intended by the two governments to reassure Mr Trimble, and he should now take advantage of its announcement to convince his followers it can work as legislation setting it up goes through the British parliament.
Tactically there is still some play in the UUP divisions, since the three dissidents face disciplinary proceedings next weekend if they oppose the legislation or refuse to accept the party whip. But such questions can now be tackled by a more confident Trimble leadership, reaffirming the solid, if narrow, ground on which it rests.