Outgoing Ulster Unionist Party leader David Trimble has "no regrets at all" about negotiating the Belfast Agreement. While there was no "security of tenure" in politics, 10 years as UUP leader was a "good innings" and he was proud of what had been achieved in that time.
UUP headquarters in east Belfast was packed with reporters and camera crews yesterday morning for what was probably Mr Trimble's last news conference as leader. Clearly surprised at the turnout, he quipped: "Maybe I should do this more often."
He had been thinking of resigning since the Assembly elections in 2003, he revealed.
"And that is one regret. I think it might have been better for the party had I resigned, say, early in 2004." After last week's result, where the party lost four of its five Westminster seats, "there was no other course".
"Actually 10 years is a pretty good innings," he said. "I'm proud of what we did. I'm proud of the progress that we have achieved."
He would make whatever contribution he could to rebuilding the UUP: "I have one determination [which] is that I shall treat my successor in a much better way than my predecessors treated me, and you may say that won't be difficult."
Mr Trimble, who remains an Assembly member for Upper Bann, said he had received a phone-call from British prime minister Tony Blair after his decision to resign.
Asked if he would like to endorse any candidate for the leadership, Mr Trimble smiled and said, "No."
Looking back over his 10 years as leader, he said: "Clearly the most important thing that happened was the negotiation of the Belfast Agreement. And I want to make it absolutely clear that I have no regrets at all about involving ourselves in that negotiation, or about the outcome."
As in any negotiation there were details he might have liked to be slightly different: "But I have no regrets about the strategic decision, or the approach, or about the fundamentals of the agreement. I am quite sure that the future development of Northern Ireland is going to be based on that agreement, give or take a little bit here or there."
That view had been "hugely reinforced" by the negotiations the Democratic Unionist Party had engaged in last autumn. "They showed that they were not able to, or anxious to - it is for them to say which - change any of the fundamentals of the agreement."
Those talks also demonstrated that the "DUP were not capable of making an agreement because they didn't close the deal that was there, they did break down at the last minute. And indeed my own personal view is that we are likely to see a similar breakdown from the DUP in the future, if indeed they do engage in a negotiation."
The British and Irish governments were "seriously at fault" in not upholding the agreement: "When republicans failed to deliver, they found governments were too indulgent of them and protected them."
Flanked by party chairman James Cooper and party president Lord Rogan, Mr Trimble said: "This party has a future, no doubt about that. Unionism has to have the Ulster Unionist Party because the DUP is not capable, in the long run, of being a vehicle for unionism."
Mr Trimble said the majority of the unionist electorate were "voting for a stalemate". He added: "Unfortunately they are comfortable with direct rule."
Sinn Féin president Gerry Adams commented afterwards on Radio Ulster: "David's most difficult and toughest negotiation was always with himself and that was because of the crisis within unionism."
The DUP leader the Rev Ian Paisley said Mr Trimble's comment on his predecessor, Lord Molyneaux, was "unbecoming".