JOHN MAJOR'S skills are too frequently underestimated. And this political truth was never more clearly demonstrated than in the House of Commons yesterday afternoon. With calm assurance, and mastery of the detail, the British Prime Minister snatched a parliamentary victory from the jaws of expected defeat.
The ink had barely dried on the Mitchell report before the nationalist spin" was set in what they must have hoped was concrete. The International Body would deal a mortal blow to Mr Major rejecting his Washington Three requirement for decommissioning ahead of all party talks.
And, indeed, the report was an unflinching confirmation of the "reality" commonly held by the Irish Government, the SDLP, Sinn Fein and the loyalist parties that Britain's terms would not be met as a precondition for negotiations. The only question it seemed, was how Mr Major would disguise his inevitable retreat.
But there was no hint of a climb down yesterday. The atmosphere inside No. 10 Downing Street was distinctly unfused. The Prime Minister spent much of his time in a "political" cabinet meeting. Outside that small coterie who concern themselves with Northern Ireland affairs the attention of most Tory MPs was focused on the plight of Ms Harriet Harman and the embarrassment of Mr Tony Blair over Labour's education policy.
Mr Major and his advisers had considered the findings of the International Body on Monday night and through Tuesday, culminating in a meeting of the cabinet's Northern Ireland committee. By the time he telephoned the Taoiseach, Mr Bruton, Mr Major had already determined his response. And it seemed clear last night that he could only have prepared Dublin for it in the most general terms.
Mr Major's response was to get himself (and the Ulster Unionist Party) out from under the 20 pages of the Mitchell report, seize the political initiative and set his own agenda for the intensive round of talks which will now follow. That agenda is emphatically not the one prescribed by Dublin, the SDLP or Sinn Fein.
Their hope explicit in the responses of Mr Dick Spring, Mr John Hume and Mr Gerry Adams was that Mr Major would use the report to ease himself gracefully off the Washington Three hook and make a commitment to meet the end of February target date for all party talks.
Mr Major's response was to invite them to discuss the UUP's preferred route to such talks elections in the North.
Key Dublin strategists had feared that Mr Major would only drop the Washington Three demand in exchange for another the Northern Ireland assembly (or a variation of it) advocated by Mr David Trimble. Irish ministers and officials understood Mr Major's need to keep the idea in play in order to maintain support from the UUP leader.
The anxiety was that he should not do so in terms which appeared to present nationalists with another precondition. If John Hume's reaction in the Commons chamber is any guide they can only have been profoundly disappointed.
Mr Major invited MPs to note that the International Body had not concluded that the paramilitaries could not decommission, simply that they would not. It would be a step forward if all parties would embrace the six principles and still more so if Sinn Fein could join the two governments in accepting the wide principles of consent set out in the Downing Street Declaration.
But, while welcoming the body's proposals on modalities for a decommissioning process, and its emphasis on other confidence building measures, Mr Major said that the problem remained how to bring the parties together.
Self evidently, he said, the best way was for the paramilitaries to make a start on decommissioning. The British could "see no reason why they should not" and he would therefore sustain the pressure on them to do so.
However, another way had been suggested by Mr Trimble, Dr Ian Paisley and the Alliance Party. The body had made clear that a "broadly acceptable elective process, with an appropriate mandate and within the three strand structure, could contribute to the building of confidence".
Mr Major considered this a viable alternative route to the confidence necessary to bring about all party negotiations. In that context, it was "possible to imagine decommissioning and such negotiations being taken forward in parallel".
It was true that "other parties" had registered their "concerns" about this approach, and these would need to be addressed. But, Mr Major declared, "in a democratic system like ours I cannot see how elections could be regarded by any of the parties as a side issue or as a block to progress
The Prime Minister therefore made it "quite clear to the House" that his government was ready to introduce the necessary legislation and allow the elective process to go ahead "as soon as may be practicable".
Decommissioning or elections two routes to the same goal.
The choice ultimately was for the parties, said Mr Major. But he was clear that the people of Northern Ireland had "every right to expect that one or other of those routes will be taken, and taken soon".
Mr Trimble and Mr Peter Robinson, of the Democratic Unionist Party were delighted with Mr Major's performance. The SDLP leader, Mr Hume, appeared apoplectic. In contrast with other big occasions in the Commons, it was he and not the unionists who struck the discordant note, bringing howls of disapproval from the government benches.
Challenging Mr Major to name the date for all party talks, he told him bluntly not to "waste" another 17 months. And he taunted Mr Major, telling him it would be "utterly irresponsible for any government to play politics to buy votes and keep itself in power".
Mr Major seemed well prepared, as if he'd been simply awaiting the opportunity to slap the SDLP leader down.
Acknowledging that Mr Hume had been engaged in the search for peace longer than he himself had, Mr Major said that he was every bit as committed and caring. Had he been interested only in short term advantage he would never have embarked on the process in the first place. He had also taken risks for peace, he told Mr Hume. And there was simply no point in Mr Hume demanding all party talks when they lacked the confidence necessary to bring all parties to the table.
But are they any closer to the table, or do the parties stand even further apart?
On the face of it, Sinn Fein and the SDLP regard the proposed elections as a substitute precondition. But the Prime Minister will now go into overdrive to persuade nationalists that he is not paving the way for a "return to the old Stormont". There have always been doubts as to whether Mr Trimble has thought through the full implications of the electoral process he has advocated. And much will turn on the ability of the mandarins to devise an elected body, or electoral index, which is not Mr Trimble's "assembly". It will be difficult, but it is not impossible.
The alternative would appear to be stalemate. For, while Mr Major looked forward to fulfilling his commitment to an Anglo Irish summit in the middle of next month, he had nothing to say about the "firm aim" of all party talks a fortnight later.