THERE was plenty of orange juice but no black pudding; Bushmills but no champagne, at what has become an annual British party conference occasion - The Ulster Fry. At the Labour conference in Bournemouth last Wednesday morning the great and the good on the Northern Ireland scene, led by Secretary of State, Mo Mowlam gathered at the Royal Bath Hotel for a lavish breakfast sponsored by the Belfast Telegraph and Belfast Airport.
Among the 100 or so guests were the Irish Ambassador, Ted Barrington and UUP leader David Trimble, but not the PM Tony Blair, who was half expected, but sent his Downing Street chief of staff, Jonathan Powell instead.
Why, asked several, was there no black pudding to go with the soda farls and potato bread? Because, David Burnside of the Unionist Information Office in London informed those busy adding the Bushmills to the porridge, black pudding is not part of an Ulster Fry.
For some it was one heavy meal on top of another. Like Trimble, they had attended the dinner hosted by Ambassador Barrington at the Stakis Hotel the previous night to promote Anglo-Irish relations. Guests included Martin McGuinness, David Ervine, Dermot Nesbitt, Denis Haughey, Labour MPs Harry Barnes and Margaret Moran and Trimble's pal, De- nis, soon to be Lord, Rogan. Mo left after the first course to do the usual round of conference parties.
Generally there was a mood of optimism in Bournemouth - on the unsubstantiated grounds that Trimble has managed to move things on and that George Mitchell will do the business. Next week, the Tories meet in Blackpool where the situation should be a bit trickier for supporters of the Belfast Agreement. There is great unease among the grassroots at the Patten Report on the RUC and on prisoner releases. But Dublin in particular will be watching to see how the threat of a break in bipartisanship develops.