Public consultation on Newbury started in 1982 and the final decision to go ahead was taken in July 1995, 13 years later. The Government must balance these conflicting demands and provide an infrastructure enabling this country to function efficiently and effectively while minimising damage to the environment. A small number of people are protesting loudly against the building of the Newbury bypass because they claim it will damage the countryside. A larger number want to travel freely round or through Newbury.

If the two governments now act in a way which reinforces stability, then perhaps we can be spared the worst of some of the horrors which otherwise await.The writer is Professor of Irish Politics at Queen’s University, Belfast.. If it proves impossible to bring Sinn Fein back in to dialogue, David Trimble may well be prepared to offer compromises that would serve to bind together the constitutionalist parties But the fringe loyalists also have their part to play. People should not forget that loyalist paramilitary killing, which was about 10 per cent of the total on the eve of the Anglo-Irish agreement in 1985, then rose to the point where it exceeded that of the republicans in the period immediately preceding the ceasefire This dramatic rise was fuelled by fears of a sell-out. Seamus Mallon of the SDLP is clear that the republican movement has placed itself outside the nationalist consensus, especially on the issues of consent and peaceful means – although his leader, John Hume, seems more reluctant to face up to the implications of this fact.Above all, it is up to the leaders of mainstream Unionism to sustain this nationalist consensus.

John Alderdice, leader of the Alliance Party, also argued that a settlement had to be based on the agreement of the peaceful, constitutional parties first; this was, after all, the conventional wisdom up to 1993.Is it possible to envisage a deal without Sinn Fein? The Dublin government seems undecided, but there is no doubt where the deepest political instincts of the Irish prime minister John Bruton lie, and it’s not with propping up the IRA. Certainly one way to restrain loyalist violence is to keep the fringe parties firmly within the political process. But it left behind some culture of reason and rationality within the Unionist working class, and David Ervine in particular is proud of his family associations with Labour.Yesterday, some loyalists argued that their peaceful stand should be rewarded by inclusion in all-party talks (minus Sinn Fein). At its height, in 1962, the NILP vote in 16 Belfast constituencies was 58,811, while the total Unionist vote for the same constituencies was 69,096. The NILP, which had both Catholic and Protestant activists, was torn apart by the stresses of the Troubles.