The UUP on Saturday faced the challenge of becoming relevant again, writes Gerry Moriarty, Northern Editor.
The Ulster Unionist Party is one year short of its centenary. It's 99 years old, the same age as Sinn Féin, both intertwined in a powerful, unresolved history that affects us all. Sinn Féin is central to what's happening now, the UUP is not: that was the challenge for David Trimble at the weekend, to become relevant again.
The UUP met for its annual conference in Newcastle, Co Down, on Saturday attempting to reclaim the territory it has lost to the upstart Democratic Unionist Party. It was the UUP's first conference without Jeffrey Donaldson but initially, at least, the sense was: Jeffrey is departed; long live Jeffrey.
South Antrim MP David Burnside - the one who didn't jump into the warm embrace of Ian Paisley - chose to hog the local newspaper headlines on Saturday morning with his view that the UUP and the DUP should forge a united front in Westminster, his unnecessary reminder that the party fared poorly in last year's Assembly election and his opinion that Ulster Unionists had lost their way.
Party chairman James Cooper didn't mention Mr Burnside by name but told delegates that "unhelpful and unnecessary comments" from certain quarters for publication on the morning of conference hardly bolstered party morale.
This prompted almost unanimous applause and a certain lowering expression from Mr Burnside in the conference hall of the Slieve Donard Hotel.
Mr Burnside was so annoyed, it seemed, that he decided to leave conference just before Mr Trimble took to the rostrum for his address as party leader. Bad manners surely. No, no, said a party spokesman, Mr Burnside had pressing business elsewhere. That was his story and he was sticking to it.
So, no change within the UUP? Jeffrey, Arlene Foster and Norah Beare gone, but still enough dissidents to spoil the party? Not so. After Mr Burnside left the hall, delegates were reasonably happy to rally behind Mr Trimble.
There were one or two peripheral mutterings about his style of leadership but, unlike previous conferences when Jeffrey was around, no talk of requisitioning yet another meeting of the Ulster Unionist Council to try to dethrone him.
There are still a few little divisions but on Saturday, for once, the overall united front was genuine. That's one major battle put behind the party but there are huge ones ahead, as Mr Burnside suggested and as the delegates and Mr Trimble well know. The challenge for Mr Trimble is to build on that unity.
With the DUP so much in the unionist ascendant, the theme of the conference was: the Ulster Unionist Fightback.
The most that Mr Trimble could hope for was to send delegates home with fire in the belly. He probably achieved that but it was a fire with a slow, low-burning flame.
Nobody at the conference was pretending that what was lost to Dr Paisley would quickly be clawed back by Mr Trimble. Neither was anybody arguing that the party could match the energy and enthusiasm of the DUP.
Democratic Unionists stage annual rallies, Ulster Unionists hold conferences, but Mr Trimble also played on that difference.
His pitch was to argue that the DUP now essentially was a pro-Belfast Agreement party, that it had turned itself inside out in order to surpass the UUP in electoral support, and that there was a deep philosophical difference between the two main representatives of unionism.
In short, he depicted the DUP as an irredeemably unpleasant, in many ways sectarian, bigoted party. Mr Peter Robinson spoke interestingly on Friday of creating a Northern Ireland where "Planter and Gael" could feel at ease but Mr Trimble was having none of it - he didn't believe the DUP deputy leader.
Earlier at the conference, the Marquess of Salisbury, Lord Cranbourne, complained about the British government's doomed attempt to "civilise" both the DUP and Sinn Féin. It was a close-to-the-knuckle, patronising comment but one Mr Trimble was happy to develop, particularly in relation to the DUP.
"Five years of [ DUP] sourness will do unaccountable damage to the union. Unionism cannot afford a representation that will make Gerry Adams appear good before the court of English public opinion," said Mr Trimble.
He spoke of the UUP being a pluralist party. Not for Ulster Unionists sectarian pickets outside a Catholic church in Harryville in Ballymena.
Rather, Ulster Unionists stood shoulder to shoulder by the Catholic Mass-goers, irrespective of taunts from DUP supporters, because that was the true nature of Protestantism and unionism.
"Sectarianism is not in our DNA," said Mr Trimble, the implication being that it was inherent in the genetic make-up of the DUP.
Mr Trimble also took considered political swipes at Ian Paisley and his colleagues.
He welcomed George Bush's victory in the US election and effectively compared the DUP to John Kerry. It claimed to be opposed to the Belfast Agreement but was yet married to the fundamentals of the Good Friday deal.
"You know, there is a phrase to describe the way the DUP has progressed - flip-flop, flip-flop!" the UUP leader said.
Essentially though, Mr Trimble's argument to delegates and all the voters he needs to win to his cause was one of class.
"We have been the main vehicle for unionism for by far the greater part of the last 100 years because our core values reflect those of the Ulster-British people," he said.
Mr Trimble's point was clear: you get a better type of unionist in the Ulster Unionist Party. The UUP was a party of a broad UK and global outlook; the DUP was teeming with "little Ulster" men and women.
Will that bother Ian Paisley and Peter Robinson? Hardly. Will it gain wider support for the UUP? Probably not.
Yet, it provided some cheer for Ulster Unionists in Newcastle on Saturday. Feeling united and superior to your main unionist opponent must be comforting. It doesn't put any extra votes in the ballot box, though.