Draw Breath

If you haven't already read it, it would be worth your while popping over to the Guardian to read Peter Mandelson skewering Tony Blair over negotiations with Sinn Féin. I'm surprised: I always thought of Mandelson as the undying loyalist, but it looks like he's not averse to getting a dig in as Blair goes out the door.

Mandelson suggests that Blair gave too much away to SF in negotiating the Agreement. Apparently Mandelson resisted Blair's negotiating line and was spinned against as a result (sound familiar?).

Which does lead me to a thought I've been having over the last few days. I've been reading the implication (not least a recent very insightful post on the Young Unionists site (which is down as I write)) that the DUP are little more than charlatans, stealing the UUP's clothing having campaigned precisely in opposition to the UUP (putting aside other deceits documented by Beano). Which is only the case if you think that the question in unionist voters' heads is 'who will best deal with SF on my behalf?'

If, on the other hand, the question is 'who will best deal with Westminster on my behalf?' then things take on a different gloss. The prospect of having to do a deal with Paisley et al had a major impact on Blair's (and Ahern's) dealings with SF, leading them to figure that they'd have to get far more than they got for Trimble in order to get Paisley on board. In this scenario, the inevitability of Paisley doing the deal was not the important factor. Rather, the important thing is that his reputation in London led to an increase in the expected cost of a deal.

I doubt if this is a reflection on the DUP's strategic subtelties. More likely it's an accident of circumstance, like the minor role Reagan's nuclear recklessness played in the collapse of the Soviet Union. But I wouldn't be surprised if seeing Paisley as a useful tool for leveraging more from the Brits and shifting them away from paying almost exclusive attention to SF was the key to last week's results.

In this sense, though it will change, the elections were little more than a proxy war. The real territorial struggle continues to be for the mind of Tony Blair. And in this, Paisley has the upper hand.

Update-in-Writing: I see that the ever-reliable fair-deal has reported the Mandelson piece over on Slugger.

Update-after-Writing: If you're reading this you're probably coming from Slugger, but for the record Mick Fealty has a good review of the major issues of on the Guardian's Comment is Free.