It takes a certain kind of nerve for a party leader with about 5 per cent in the opinion polls to stand up to the US/British position on Iraq. Tony Blair recognises that the peace process, with its concentration on the Ulster Unionists and Sinn Féin, is playing tough on the other parties, writes Dan Keenan, in Dunadry, Co Antrim
He said as much in Belfast last October in his notable "acts of completion" speech when he admitted that SDLP leaders felt their very reasonableness meant they counted for less, and there possibly would be no Belfast Agreement were it not for the Alliance party.
On Saturday, David Ford - who is as far removed from the description "megalomaniac" as it's possible to get - snapped at the Prime Minister's heels.
"Deciding what is best for others smacks of an imperial era that should be over," he said, accusing Washington and London of failing to deal with the Israeli-Palestinian crisis.
For all the Prime Minister's claims about moral imperatives, Mr Ford's remarks rang true if for no other reason than they were so simple.
The manner of his delivery at the conference podium is not one to stir the blood. But Alliance is not that kind of party.
Why entrench a system of unionist-nationalist blocs in the Assembly when the objective is to break away from them-and-us politics, he asks?
Why place so little emphasis on community relations policy when division at all levels of society is so rife, he poses rhetorically? Simple.
Perhaps therein lies the party's influence - the ability to chip in to the debate with points that can't be easily dismissed.
Alliance may never regain the 20 per cent standing it once had in the polls, it may never pack the largest conference halls and it may never reverse the greying trend of its delegate profile. But its capacity for contributing to this peace process remains stubborn.