Taylor puts spanner in Blair's fix-it deal with the parties

We have been here before

We have been here before. The average rollercoaster ride seems like a Sunday stroll by comparison with the ups and downs of the peace process. In the small hours of yesterday morning, Tony Blair was spirited away from Stormont without coming within contamination distance of the media. The tempting and immediate conclusion was he has not got good news, it must be a disaster.

But no, he was clearly trying to avoid being seen as the puppet-master of the process, always having to pull the strings of the unionists to get them to dance in step with other parties, especially the SDLP.

In the manic depressive saga that the peace process has become, yesterday morning was a time for participants to wake up cheerful, confident in the knowledge that Tony had once more fixed it.

Bertie Ahern had stayed away, at least partly at the behest of the unionist leadership who did not want him frightening their nervous supporters by his presence, but now he was gearing up for a triumphant visit North and an even more triumphant return to the Cairde Fail dinner, the party's biggest social event.

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A phrase used by the previous Northern Secretary, Sir Patrick Mayhew, kept coming to mind. Discussing cross-Border bodies with Mr Dick Spring in November 1994 (days before the Spring-Reynolds marriage ended up on the rocks), he reportedly said: "We must lay the horses gently."

He was referring to the need for tact and sensitivity - even, perhaps, cunning - for fear of upsetting the unionist middle ground and shifting it into the arms of the hardliners.

Some observers, notably Mr Nigel Dodds of the DUP, were interpreting Mr John Taylor's negative comments yesterday as old-fashioned political bluster, designed to present the Ulster Unionist Party as driving the hardest possible bargain on cross-Border institutions as well as the number of ministerial posts.

The varying positions Mr Taylor adopted in the days leading up to Good Friday were recalled by others. Commenting on the prospects for an agreement early that week, he said he would not touch it with a barge-pole but then, as the wags have it, "he swallowed the barge-pole".

The more sinister interpretation was, perhaps inevitably, put forward by Sinn Fein spokesmen who claimed the UUP was trying to renegotiate the Good Friday deal, an agreement they were never comfortable with in the first place because it contained too many concessions to nationalists. The Sinn Fein view is that key unionists still have an essentially bigoted attitude to the nationalist community, crystallised in Lord Brookeborough's infamous remark that he "wouldn't have one of them about the place".

That is an analysis which annoys and upsets the self-styled modernising wing of the UUP which wants to put clear blue water between itself and the old guard who do not even want power-sharing with nationalists.

Mr Taylor has a penchant for putting the cat among the pigeons and he did exactly that yesterday afternoon when, fresh from a reportedly fraught meeting of the Ulster Unionist assembly party, he advised reporters to take a week's holiday because nothing would be settled before then.

Word must have got back quickly to the SDLP because, in just over an hour, a grim-faced Mr Seamus Mallon was reading out a statement detailing what he had agreed with Mr Blair the previous night. This was North-South bodies for trade and business development, tourism, strategic transport planning and European Union programmes. He added: "There will be 10 departments with a stand-alone department of finance and personnel".

The atmosphere was electric. The process was once again in crisis. Rumours were spreading that Mr Blair was on the phone, presumably demanding to know what had happened to his carefully worked out deal of the night before.

Mr Taylor appeared on television to deny that the UUP had retreated from its commitments. They had discussed only two North-South bodies with the prime minister, namely EU programmes and "trade within the island of Ireland". He taunted Mr Mallon with rejecting a body for the promotion of the Irish language (a claim Mr Mallon disputes). But he struck an upbeat note: "We are nearing agreement. I think we should be able to achieve it."

As darkness was falling around Stormont, it was unclear whether the process was simply going through a very bad wobble or had been plunged into a crisis from which there might be no escape. The SDLP had what one member called "a muted celebration" early yesterday morning after a successful negotiation with Mr Blair, but as the day wore on the euphoria must have worn off.

Mr Taylor was everywhere, giving credence in some eyes to suggestions that he was still a contender for the leadership which Mr Trimble previously snatched from his grasp. A senior SDLP figure has always taken a less alarmist if in a sense more jaundiced view of Mr Taylor: "He's just a political messer."

Mr Blair, attending an Anglo-French summit in France, was said to be "spitting blood" and wondering what in the name of all that was unmentionable had happened to the midnight Stormont agreement, which he brokered by going from room to room. There was never a round-table session and this may turn out to have been a mistake.

Dr Mowlam was reported to be equally upset, pointing out that the prime minister could not be treated in this way.

Mr Trimble is due to leave this morning for the US. On Tuesday he receives a peace award in Washington, then flies to Oslo for the Nobel award. Even the SDLP accepts that these are legitimate reasons for being out of the country. He will not be back until December 14th. That is the last week before the Commons goes into recess, resuming in mid-January. Each cross-Border body would require separate legislation of its own, not to mention having to be approved by the Dail and Westminster.

On Wednesday night, observers were saying there would be a deal only if the Prime Minister stayed to the end. Mr Blair apparently believed he had a deal but, like others before him, he is finding out that everything in Northern Ireland is not always as it seems.