WHEN David Trimble was canvassing in the North Down constituency at the weekend he encountered three Dubliners who were "up for the day". In the course of a relaxed conversation they asked him if he had any message they could take back with them.
He advised them that when the election in the Republic was declared, "Vote for anybody but don't vote Labour.
"Oh no," one of the Dubliners responded immediately. "I'll never do that again."
David Trimble laughs as he tells the story. Even the prospect of having to go out and canvass in the rain after this interview yesterday failed to dampen the UUP's leader's spirits.
He says his first Westminster election as party leader has been "pretty quiet". At the same time he is quietly confident his party will retain its nine Westminster seats. "There's nothing on the downside that I can see" - and he sees possible gains in West Tyrone, East Belfast, North Down and Newry Armagh.
He is quietly confident, too, that if Labour wins the election he will have a good rapport with the new government. He describes his relations with the leadership of the Labour Party as "cordial". So what about the note of optimism coming from Sinn Fein that it will do better under Tony Blair than John Major?
"It's quite possible that they don't understand that Labour has changed. Or are they trying to manufacture a new alibi for failure? During the 1995-96 period Sinn Fein used the alleged reluctance of John Major as the excuse for their failure." He said the republicans had failed to take the opportunity given to them by the Downing Street Declaration to move into the political process.
But, I ask him, will we ever see the day when David Trimble is sitting at the same table as Gerry Adams? He replies that it would be very easy to answer the question by saying, "Never," but it would require Mr Adams to change, not just in words, but in the principles by which he goes, and he didn't see any sign of this taking place. "Of course, one cannot rule out the possibility that Mr Adams will see the error of his ways.
Many nationalists would like to see a De Klerk figure emerging from the ranks of unionism. Mr Trimble says the analogy is "quite obviously incorrect" because Mr De Klerk came from the minority population. He says the De Klerk type figure needs to come from republican ranks. "We have not yet seen the equivalent emerge within Sinn Fein. That's what this whole peace process is predicated on, that that possibility exists."
He is constantly accused of sell out, particularly by the Rev Ian Paisley and his followers. "I rather suspect that's going to backfire on them." He finds it reassuring to be attacked by the DUP and Mr Robert McCartney on one side and the Alliance leader, Lord Alderdice, on the other.
"We are actually trying to do something, so people like Paisley and Alderdice, who are not doing anything and probably are not capable of doing anything, are consequently sniping at us. That goes with the territory and I'm not going to get upset about it."
His mood grows sombre when asked about the loyalist ceasefire, which he acknowledges is under serious pressure. "I do not wish and will not acquiesce in a situation whereby paramilitaries resume violence in an undeclared manner, and that is a problem and it's going to cause a problem. Having said that, though, we want to sustain the loyalist ceasefire and consequently sustain the presence of the loyalist parties' (at the Stormont talks) if it can be done."
Relations with the DUP have been testy throughout the election campaign. Mr Trimble said that, at the end of the day, there weren't really any negotiations between the two parties over who would run in the key constituencies of West Tyrone and North Belfast. "We just said, basically, this is what we are doing because they were open and shut cases and the DUP had no business coming into either of them, and at the end of the day he had to recognise that."
Cecil Walker of the UUP was the sitting MP in North Belfast, and in the new constituency of West Tyrone the UUP had scored the highest vote in the Forum elections. If the DUP had failed to withdraw its candidates and give the UUP a clear run, Mr Trimble claims the electorate would have hammered Dr Paisley's party in the local elections due on May 21st.
So can he do business with John Hume? "Does he want to do business with me, that's the question?" His perception is that up until now the SDLP leader "has given a greater priority to Sinn Fein than to the Unionist Party", but he hopes this will change.
The UUP leader would like to see the Stormont talks, set to resume on June 3rd, "move into something serious". But he stresses there must first of all be agreement on decommissioning so that Sinn Fein cannot be "parachuted" into the talks at a later stage.
We will not leave ourselves open to that on terms that would be unacceptable to us." Were that to happen, the UUP could find itself left with no alternative but to walk out and he would rather avoid having to do that.
The UUP leader is surprisingly upbeat about Drumcree. He concedes that the response to recent comments he made about the likelihood of a peaceful solution had been negative but he points out that they were also "fairly low keyed".
"There's no reason in my view why it shouldn't pass off peacefully. It has done so, year in, year out, for all but two of the last 190 years.
How does he feel about the prospect of Dr Mo Mowlam replacing Sir Patrick Mayhew as Northern Ireland Secretary? "Well, it will be a different form of discourse, won't it?" He is confident he can have a good working relationship with Dr Mowlam.
"There's no problem there."