It wasn't too difficult to see that [Ian] Paisley would never do anything positive.

We had the IRA ceasefire in August 1994 and a lot of people assumed that a deal had been done - which wasn't right.

During the 1996 Forum election my election agent, John Dobson, told me that at some stage down the line we were going to have to talk to the IRA and that I was the man to do it. And my reaction was not printable!

There was a process in place at that time - the Downing Street Declaration of December 1993 - which set out the terms and conditions under which people who had been involved in paramilitary activity could come into the political process.

I was organizing a fringe meeting at the Conservative Party conference in October 1994 and I got a message that the Prime Minister would like a meeting. I went to the meeting. It was just me and John Major.What Major said to me was this: "If you were in my shoes, what would you do?". He wasn't asking me what a unionist should do, but what he should do. And I knew that I had to give him a sensible answer.

As we take stock of this century of achievement, Ulster Unionists have every reason to feel proud.

It wasn't too difficult to see that [Ian] Paisley would never do anything positive.