The Man Who Walked Away
This week I took a walk back down memory lane revisiting Castle Buildings, the non-descript office block on the Stormont estate which was the venue for so much drama in the run up to the Good Friday Agreement nearly ten years ago. Like the rest of the Belfast press corps I spent hour after hour in the car park outside waiting for any news of a breakthrough or a breakdown. Given that the DUP and UK Unionists had long since walked out of the talks, the politicians with the toughest choices facing them were the Ulster Unionists. Their press officer was David Kerr and, revisiting his old haunts with me this week, he summoned up the mood inside the talks room as the UUP faced its moment of decision a decade ago, with Ken Maginnis making an impassioned speech in favour of the deal, whilst Jeffrey Donaldson set out his concerns in relation to prisoner releases and decommissioning.
As we all know now, David Trimble did the deal, but Jeffrey Donaldson walked away. The Lagan Valley MP is my guest this weekend on Inside Politics, fielding questions about the events of 1998, if David Trimble deserves praise for his pioneering work then, Jonathan Powell's revelations about an alleged back channel between the DUP and Sinn Fein and Mary McAleese's comments linking a visit by the Queen to Dublin to the transfer of justice powers.
As usual, the programme goes on out on BBC Radio Ulster at 12.45 on Saturday afternoon.
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