SYMBOLISM:FOR ALL the blunt talking that has typified DUP conferences past, this gathering was shrouded with symbolism.
Hundreds of delegates met amid the drumlins of DUP-controlled Strangford at La Mon House, scene of one of the grizzliest of atrocities 31 years previously. There is more than a hint of unionist defiance of republican violence in the choice of such a venue.
But these are safer and more prosperous times. Expensive vehicles jammed the car park and the approaches to the centre.
Aware of the chaos outside, party chairman Lord Morrow took the microphone in the packed hall. Tongue firmly in cheek he opted for a name and shame policy in an effort to sort out the parking crisis.
“Would the owners of the following vehicles please move them – a white Audi, a dark Land Rover, a red BMW . . . and a Rolls Royce.” A sign of the times indeed.
With impeccable timing he added an appeal for a motorcycle to be parked properly – a poke at party “petrol head” and Minister for Finance Sammy Wilson.
As before, Sammy stepped up to the mark as conference joker-in-chief and morale-booster.
He lampooned TUV leader Jim Allister without anaesthetic, accusing him of having no alternative to powersharing with Sinn Féin.
The former DUP man was portrayed as Dorothy from The Wizard of Oz onthe yellow brick road in search of a non-existent Utopia.
Wilson rejected Allister’s oft-repeated suggestions that Sinn Féin hadn’t changed.
Of course they had changed: they now talked about taxing plastic bags where once they used plastic explosives.
But the meat of the conference was tougher and harder to digest.
Peter Robinson was nothing if not clear about staying the course alongside Sinn Féin in Stormont.
It was a sober speech and a very long one. “Ulster Says No” was short and simple. Explaining “Ulster Says Yes But In Our Own Good Time” is a more detailed business.