While escorting me out of his offices in East Belfast at the conclusion of this interview, Ian Paisley Jnr. suddenly smiled, opened a bullet-proof glass door and said “here’s to the day when there is real peace and we can all get rid of this stuff and live normal lives.”

It was an off-the-cuff comment which probably sums up precisely how the majority of Unionists feel in the wake of the IRA ceasefire. And yet, the person making this particular comment is obviously not just any unionist. He is the son of Dr. Ian Paisley Snr., his father’s personal assistant and Justice spokesperson for the DUP. That said, there also obviously are generational differences between the two Paisleys.

Nowhere are these better highlighted than by the choice of art on the walls of their respective offices. In Ian Paisley Snr.’s office there is a clearly out-of-date caricature of “Haughey, after getting kicked in the nuts by my dad!” as his son says, laughing. In his own office there is a post-modern painting depicting “shipbuilders coming home from work”, which was painted by George Fleming.

Common to both offices, however, are framed copies of Kipling’s poem ‘If’, which Paisley Jnr quotes from memory just before we leave the building, saying ‘If you can keep your head/while all about you are losing theirs/And blaming it on you.’ (He sees the humour in the suggestion that perhaps, in the current political climate, he should remind his father to read that poem again . . .)

And yet it is Ian Paisley Jnr’s involvement in the cultural sphere which marks him out as a product of the 1970’s and ‘80’s. Born in 1966, he graduated from Queen’s University in 1989 and in 1991 published his first book, Reasonable Doubt. He will soon be publishing his second book, Debra Parker – Sure of Herself.

In the programme that accompanied recent exhibitions by George Fleming, he also addressed the key question of cultural identity, as it relates to Protestants, particularly in terms of the “jeering criticisms” that are frequently aimed in its direction.

‘The most persistent accusations run: Protestants in Northern Ireland are cultureless, they know who and what they are not, but have no idea what they are; their ideas, politics and expressions are overpowered with a siege mentality. (They) are dour, boot-faced sojourners in a chrysalis of identity crisis awaiting the day of emancipation to apologise for their stubbornness and intolerance and embrace an Irish Identity they have eschewed for so long.”

Naturally, he does not agree.

Joe Jackson: Why do you see the arts as so important in terms of expressing, and re-defining cultural identity in Northern Ireland?

Ian Paisley Jnr: Because we all are shaped by cultural as well as sociological and political influences. For example, I help George Fleming to exhibit his work and so far we’ve had about 25 exhibitions and his art is often criticised for being ‘Protestant’ in the sense that he portrays the Orange Order. And yet George is not a Protestant, he is a Ba’hai in faith. But his paintings are obviously informed by his past, because he was originally a Protestant. And artists must be honest with themselves in that way in order to express, and explain to others, who they are.

One would have expected more of a cultural outpouring, along these lines, over the past 25 years yet that hasn’t happened. Why do you think that is?

It’s a result of the sectarianism of the politics here. People are frightened to express that they are from the Protestant community, lest their work be dismissed as looking at just one side of the equation.

On the other hand, one commentator recently claimed that “the Protestant tradition has never been associated with the arts. They built ships and aircraft and kept the country going and left the art to the Catholics.”

That’s absolute nonsense. One feature of the identity of the Protestant community is the so-called ‘Protestant work ethic’. But when you’re unemployed and living in the Shankill Road the Protestant work ethic isn’t exactly amenable to you, is it? It was, when the shipyard employed 33,000 people but it isn’t now, when it employs only 3,000. Yet this doesn’t mean all Protestants have been enslaved by this work ethic and that there haven’t been Protestant painters, poets and songsters. But they don’t project themselves as Protestants. For example, Van Morrison does not say ‘I’m Van the Prod, from East Belfast.’ But then another side to this argument is ‘why should he?’ That would be too narrow for Van Morrison, for his identity. He says ‘I’m Van the Man, I’ve got a song to sing and it’s for everyone’. Mary Black, on the other hand, is perceived as being an ‘Irish Folk Singer’, therefore her cultural experience is perceived by others to be something that is Irish and Catholic, which is much more limiting.”

Nonetheless, some people have said that Van has let down his people by not defining himself as a Protestant.

I love Van Morrison’s music, but I do think the criticism is valid when it’s said he’s deserted his people when he’s seen playing with the Dubliners, or whoever, instead of coming up here and playing with the Sharpshooters Flute Band. Someone will always criticise people who leave their community and do not make a contribution in a very specific way, back into that community. Yet I think we should be thankful that he is making a broad contribution. And we do have Tom Paulin, John Hewitt, all those writers. But many of them feel let down by their own community because they believe that Protestants are not exposed to art, or rather cultural self-expression in the broadest sense. We’re not taught, in our state schools, how to be creative. Instead, we’re exposed to the sciences, history and so on. And, in his work, John Hewitt certainly has suggested that because we’re not exposed to thinking deeply, about who and what we are, we just accept it, without question. Whereas the Irish community, on the other hand, feel that it is so important to project who they are culturally, that at least they use art to question such things. That’s where cultural expression is obviously of central significance to any people.

One explanation for the current so-called cultural explosion in terms of literature, film, rock and so on is that the Irish, after centuries of oppression, have finally found their voice. Put very graphically someone said “after 800 years of having a British boot in your face, when it’s moved even slightly you shout.’

That’s Bunkum. It’s chip-on-the-shoulder mentality. And let’s be realistic here. What is the Protestant inheritance on this island? Is it simply just six counties Irishness? No. Before this island was partitioned, who were the unionists? There were liberal, and conservative Irish unionists. What is the Presbyterian Church? It is the Irish Presbyterian Church. So the Protestant community quite rightly have a sense that Irishness is ours too. But it’s ours in a different way than it is to the Catholic community. It’s part of our psyche, which we have the right to accept or reject. The real problem is that ‘Irishness’ has been hijacked and become a political weapon. So, to be ‘Irish’ you can’t be Protestant, you can’t be a unionist. To be Irish you have to be everything which isn’t British. Whereas the Protestant community would have the vision to see Irishness as something which says you can be an Irish Protestant, you can be an Irish unionist, and you can be Irish and British at the same time. And that is something that is very important to us and should be promoted in a more positive way.

Unfortunately, the past 25 years have really kicked that notion in the teeth.

You speak of ‘culture’ in a very modern sense, as encompassing the ‘lived experience’ of people and how they choose to express themselves rather than seeing ‘culture’ as ‘high art’. Do you think that drawing that distinction is of key importance in this debate?

Definitely. Too many politicians relegate the question of ‘culture’ to the periphery, whereas, to me, it is central. For example, what is your real culture if you’re a working class Prod? It’s listening to the blues, it’s soccer. People express themselves through soccer, and the teams they support. They express themselves through rap, and even what some people dismiss as “trash” culture, such as the films and the television programmes they are exposed to. To define ‘Irishness’ as simply things that happen within this island is very inverted. And, if people don’t adopt this broader definition of culture they will just continue to dismisses a great many things which form the Protestant community’s identity.

Do you support Co-Operation North, which is a body that promotes links between artists from the North and South of Ireland.?

I’ve no problem with any form of real and genuine co-operation along these lines, provided there isn’t some political agenda to create a monstrosity. For example, the belief among the Protestant community is that the agenda often is ‘we must soften the rough edges of Protestant identity’. Protestant culture attacks and it invokes strong, robust language. And organisations like Co-Operation North want to brush away those rough edges. Likewise, in relation to Michael D. Higgins when he talks about the importance of culture in the political sphere, the aim seems to be ‘we want to eradicate those views that are not palatable to everyone, we want some kind of homogenised cross-culture’. That, to me, is mad. Let’s accept our diversities and co-exist. Let’s not try and create some kind of hybrid monstrosity. Whether that applies to painting, theatre, poetry, novels, films, whatever.

Do you feel that the psychotic character played by Sean Bean in Patriot Games was an accurate depiction of an IRA hit man?

I think it was, yes. Obviously the Dominic McGlinchey’s of this world are not the sort of people you’d like around your house for tea!

But if it’s true of the IRA surely the ‘psychotic’ tag also applies to loyalist paramilitaries?

Of course it does.

Do you feel morally torn when asked to advise terrorists, or to defend the actions of terrorists?

I would not defend the action of a terrorist, if a particular fella came in and said ‘I need your help to get me out of something’. But if a person’s rights are being infringed, as in a prisoner’s rights to see his relatives, I will speak on their behalf. And although, right now, there is this growing tendency to look forward, not back I would say that the victims of the past have every right to express their sorrow, anger and sense of betrayal.

Can you, therefore, empathise with Nationalists who describe themselves as ‘victims of history’ in Northern Ireland?

I don’t know if I empathise with them but I wouldn’t deny them their right to articulate their past, or how they interpret their past.

Why do you almost instinctively say ‘I don’t know if I could empathise’? Can you not make the leap across that chasm?

(pause) Okay, I understand why they’re doing it.

Why, then, have you suddenly become so afraid to articulate your understanding of the Nationalist need for self-expression along these lines when, earlier, you were so articulate in relation to Protestant self-expression?

I’ve given you my answer.

Are you afraid that if you, as Ian Paisley’s son, are seen to be saying something that is sympathetic, empathetic in relation to nationalists, it may be mis-used?

There is always that problem. And, yes, I am just being cautious here. That’s one part of the problem. And I’ve nothing else to say on this question.

You graduated in History. How do you respond when historians suggest that the current phase of the Troubles in Northern Ireland can be traced back to your father’s anti-Nationalist gestures in the late 60s, such as demanding that the tricolour be removed from a premises on the Shankill Road. That, surely, was a denial of a peoples’ right to express themselves on a cultural level.

If people want to hate Ian Paisley, or blame him and interpret history that way then fair enough, blame him! But the facts of the matter suggest differently. They do not suggest that he was the cause of the Troubles, the match which lit the flames. That is an attempt by many politicians and some historians to blame one person. No conflict, at the end of the day, can be blamed on one person.

When you were a child growing up, were you aware that your father was hated?

Parents are a child’s security and if you feel secure in that sense then life is relatively normal, no matter what’s going on outside. It’s about playing soccer with your oul’ man in the garden. That’s how I remember my childhood. It was only during my late teens that people began to say ‘what was it like to have Ian Paisley as your da?’ My answer is that it all seemed quite normal to me.

But one reading of ‘normal’ in this context is that, from an early age, your father might sit you on his knee and say, “repeat after me ‘I hate Catholics, I hate the Pope and I hate the Republic of Ireland’.”

He is actually a Christian man. But I did, recently, meet a guy from Lisburn, who said he was brought up, by his mother and father, to hate Roman Catholics and he did say ‘they sat me on their knees and instructed me to hate them’. I just said ‘God love you. That was a terrible upbringing. I’m glad my parents never treated me like that and it’s terrible that your parents are such bigots’. He automatically assumed my upbringing was the same. But if anyone had sat me down and told me who to hate, I would have gone right out and done the opposite. I was given free reign in terms of this, told ‘go and make up your own mind’.

But surely you must have absorbed some of your father’s anti-Catholic views just by being his son.

His private figure is completely the opposite of all that. In the house he’s just an ordinary Da-figure. There was none of this, what people describe as ‘ranting and raving’ in the house.

That said, according to historian Joe Lee, your father ‘developed religio-political paranoia beyond the wildest dreams of his unionist contemporaries’.

That is crap, with a capital ‘C’. And that view of history just discredits those who write such things. But in answer to your broader question, my own theological background is that yes, I did go to a fundamentalist Church and fundamentalist Sunday School. Yet, although my religious views are identical to my father’s, because I attend his Church, the point is that my political views were influenced moreso by my generation than by that religious base. And I see them as separate identities within myself.

So you agree with those who suggest that your father’s political identity is shaped by his theological base.

Definitely. Whereas I am different in that a lot of my views, and my generation’s, are shaped not so much by religious baggage, but by political, economic and social baggage. And this, probably in a less emotional way, makes us stronger believers in the Union because it’s good socially, good economically and so on. We have that base, instead of just having a political notion based upon emotion.

So are your father’s politics based mostly on emotion?

Part of it can be explained as that, definitely. He’s an orator and oratory only works because you play on people’s emotions. And that’s what makes him very powerful when he speaks to an audience. And it does have the effect that you either hate his message or love his message. That explains, in a nutshell, the success of my da’s politics. He has said ‘there is a certain audience out there and they will never accept what I say, so I want to attract the audience who will believe me. And I will use every argument I can possibly muster and it will be used emotionally’. And the political question in Northern Ireland is an emotional question.

However, one could say that your father has thrived on engendering fear and hatred in the hearts of Unionists and that he has played to their lowest common denominator, even terrorised them emotionally.

I ain’t scared. But I think the average loyalist in Northern Ireland is fearful of what the British Government is up to, and has been up to, behind their backs. My father reflects that. But I do not agree that we perpetuate the ideology of fear.

Surely your father does and always has.

No. Because that approach would only hold water for so long and people will say ‘there’s nothing to be scared of’. I think he genuinely highlights for the loyalist community things they ought to be wary of, but his whole political ideology is not based on engendering fear.

But obviously he does just that, for example, when he compares John Major to Hitler and Jim Molyneaux to Judas. Indeed, it has been suggested that such comments have alienated the Loyalist community at large and risk leaving your father, and the DUP out in the political wilderness talking to themselves.

Politics is full of risks. And let’s face facts here. John Major is the most unpopular Prime Minister this century, in the UK. Let’s not pretend for one moment that, in Northern Ireland he is even liked. He’s not a man of substance. He’s not a man who would create much esteem, certainly from among my community. We’ve no sense of kinship with Major. He’s an Englishman, and we’re Ulstermen. And the community would hate the fact that he was going to dictate to a major political leader, from Northern Ireland, the terms of reference, for a conversation. And that is Hitler-like. And my father is also right when he describes an Taoiseach, Mr. Reynolds as the ‘petty little fuehrer from the South’.

But are those not just loaded emotional terms or do you and your father honestly believe them to be politically accurate?

They are accurate. And if you can’t write your ideology on a gable wall, and your average punter can’t understand it in those terms then your ideology sucks. The fact is that Ian Paisley is able to articulate those views and the average punter can understand what’s being said. Reynolds has been like a petty little fuehrer. He is like Sadam Huessein, in terms of his actions over Kuwait. And John Major has acted like a little Hitler, in terms of the how he set out the terms of reference for that meeting with my father.

But isn’t such sloganeering a ridiculously reductive view of a very complex political landscape.

Slogans get to the heart of the matter. They don’t tell the whole truth, but they tell most of it. And slogans like that have articulated a particular point of view at a particular point in this political crisis. And it is representative of how the average Unionist, and Loyalist is feeling right now.

Some loyalists are bound to say ‘rubbish’ to that and argue that they’d rather see the current political crisis dealt with in a more constructive way.

That’s their right to say that but they didn’t get 166,000 votes in the last election. Ian Paisley did. And he keeps getting that kind of support. And the riots on the Crumlin and Shankill roads this week demonstrate that there is a fierce sense that we are being sold-out. And, this has now spilled over into street violence because of the fact that no one is listening to what Loyalists have to say.

Another suggestion is that those riots this week were co-ordinated and choreographed to give a false reading of the Loyalist response to the cease fire.

Who’s the choreographer?

Your father, Peter Robinson, you?

My father is in Canada so he must be doing the choreography from afar. And I believe the rioting was spontaneous. And you know why? Two nights ago we all witnessed republicans removing barriers on the border because they said they want the opening of the border roads. But they never admitted that, despite the ‘cease fire’, people are still being knee-capped and beaten and the racketeering and smuggling continues. So while they were opening those roads, the army just stood back and watched. And in Crumlin Road republicans came out of the court, heckled Loyalists about the slaughter on the Shankill Road last year and then a fracas ensued. The RUC battened the Protestants, then got a bus to take the Catholics back to the Ardoyne and didn’t arrest one of them. Then the Loyalists who complained about the way they were treated complained to the police and, two days later, were arrested! So they have every right to say that the RUC is now doing Dublin’s dirty work and that there’s two laws in this country, one for the way republicans are treated and one for the way we’re treated.

To put it bluntly, one of those republicans that came out of the Crumlin Road courthouse this week could easily have said ‘eat shit, we’ve been eating it for long enough’, in relation to the two laws that have existed in Northern Ireland and how they have been applied to Catholics and Protestants.

The perception in the loyalist community is that the boot is on the other foot. But what we would say to that is that we never had the boot on our foot. The loyalist working class was never empowered in this country. It was the aristocracy among the Unionist community who held onto power for the first fifty years. And the British Government have held power for the past 20 years. If anyone is responsible for discrimination, the blame lies there. It’s the same as when people say that my father is the main obstacle to peace. That’s absolute rubbish. Peace is in our interests. We are the community who have suffered from IRA terrorism. If what is happening is real, just and lasting peace we are saying ‘hip hip hooray, we’re for it’ but what is happening is neither just nor lasting peace.

And why do you say that with such conviction?

Because the victims are forgotten, the IRA are being hand-shaked outside Leinster House and invited to America at the same time as elected representatives are being excluded because they disagree with what is going on. And, let me say this, the government had enough problems governing without the consent of an obstreperous minority – how much more problems will the government have governing Northern Ireland, without the consent of the overwhelming majority? You can’t govern without consent and that is a question John Major has got to face. He didn’t want to face it in Downing Street, he ran away from it. But on day he is going to have to face this fact.

Couldn’t it also be suggested that the reason your father and the DUP won’t get involved in talks is because they can’t face the fact that this will, inevitably lead to them having to relinquish the position of power they’ve held in Northern Ireland?

But what power has Ian Paisley got? The only power he has are the votes from his community. Ian Paisley can’t introduce an Act of Parliament, he can’t rule Northern Ireland. He’s powerless. But look at John Hume. People say it was a ‘great act of statesmanship’ when Hume talked with Adams. That it was ‘real leadership.’ It wasn’t. It was inverted. It was going back on one’s self, back to republicanism from nationalism. Talking to people who share your ideology isn’t ‘leadership’. But talking to people who have a different ideology is. If he’d gotten on the phone to Ian Paisley Snr or Jim Molyneaux and said ‘right, we’ve to sort out our differences’, that would have been a Statesman-like role.

But surely your father would, in effect, have said to Hume ‘go to hell’ as he has, because Hume had talks with Gerry Adams.

(cuts across) No he wouldn’t. We made an offer to John Hume, between 1991 and 1992, which his party agreed to and John Hume dismissed. It was about governing Northern Ireland in a particular way. Yet Hume walked away because he has never wanted to face the consequences of dealing with Unionists on the terms of who, and what they are and that they are a majority community.

Hume apparently was rejecting DUP offers in 1991 and 1992 because he saw them simply as Unionist rule by another name.

That is not true. John Hume avoided such offers because he knows he can’t get what he wants by a democratic process. He believes he can get what he wants if he spoils the broth for everyone else and says ‘it has to be a Nationalist solution, and I have to have Mr. Reynolds on board, and Mr. Clinton’. And that’s because he won’t stand on his own two feet and negotiate for his own people, as equals in Northern Ireland.

You say Hume would have shown real leadership qualities by talking with people who don’t share his specific political ideology, such as your father. What about Ian Paisley himself, and the DUP?

The only people we refuse to talk to are the IRA and Sinn Fein, because they are the same organisation. And we will not attend the Pan-Nationalist talks because the Forum for Peace and Reconciliation is obviously designed to perpetuate the myth that there is real peace in Northern Ireland. The IRA still have all their weapons of warfare and are definitely now in a greater position of strength because they are in the negotiating chamber and outside the negotiating chamber they have their guns and bombs. So now they have John Hume’s backing, Reynold’s backing and Clinton’s backing. And we are not going to walk into a situation where we will then be humiliated and politically alienated and have our views eradicated by a new educational process, which is what Reynolds is threatening. He says he will have to “eradicate those views which are no longer acceptable in this new agreed Ireland” – meaning our views. We will not enter any talks process when these are part of the basis for such talks and its stated aims.

Two weeks after the cease-fire, the Combined Loyalist Military Command issued a statement claiming it could make a “meaningful contribution towards peace” if six points are addressed such as ‘clarification on the permanence of the IRA cease-fire, intent of the INLA, the question of the ‘secret deal’, the implications of joint governmental ‘Framework Document’ and so on.

All those positions could have been cleared up if the Prime Minister had answered our questions. That statement was issued the day after our meeting. And in terms of the ‘Framework Document’, all we want is the assurance that any change in our Constitution the people of Northern Ireland, would, by plebiscite, have the right to say ‘yes’ or ‘no’ to. Let the people of Northern Ireland alone determine their own future – Catholics and Protestants.

What is the basis of the ‘secret deal’ the DUP believes was done with the IRA?

First of all there is the reduction of the British military commitment to Northern Ireland and the physical reduction of the British presence in terms of legislation and British economic power. Those were the kind of commitments that were given to Gerry Adams by Reynolds and Reynolds has made the commitment that he will put pressure on Major’s government and Clinton will do the same thing so that, in time, Major will yield. There also are the short-term agreements, such as the broadcast ban being lifted, IRA prisoners will be transferred and released early and another message will be sent to the IRA because, I believe, it will be announced that the RUC are no longer going to be called the RUC. They’re going to be called the Northern Ireland Police Service, because that title will not annoy Roman Catholics who are very sensitive about things being called ‘Royal’, except when it’s printed on a five pound note.

And is that the size of it?

After that there will be a crackdown on Loyalist areas because the Government have been led to believe there will be a Protestant backlash, which will be very minor and over in three, four years. So, they’re preparing for confrontation not consultation. And, therefore, according to that masterplan, in the long term, the aims of the IRA will be achieved – as in the withdrawal of Britain from Northern Ireland. Sinn Féin also want a New Ireland and that will include “pooling sovereignty” which Albert Reynolds already is speaking about in the context of a short-term agreement for a framework which allows the Irish Republic to have a greater say in the internal workings of Northern Ireland. In a few years we will be able to prove that the DUP’s analysis was true but then it could be too late. But we must block that now. And though we will not stand in the way of peace, we will block the road to surrender.

Is this Ian Paisley Jnr joining his father and Peter Robinson in claiming Ireland is directly on course for a civil war?

What we’re saying is that all the ingredients are in place for a civil war. Over the last eight months, if you’re a Loyalist paramilitary you’ve learned one solid lesson – violence pays. Gerry Adams has obviously reaped the benefits from the violence by the IRA. Violence has worked and Loyalist paramilitaries look at that and say ‘we’ll make it work for us’ if things don’t change.

Is the outline you presented earlier, of what you perceive to be the ‘secret deal’ done with the IRA based on hearsay, or do you and your father have access to factual evidence for such claims?

Our analysis is based on material evidence we have, which hasn’t been made public. We’ve made part of it public, as it emerges but we are in a position of responsibility and have to bring our community along with us. And if we didn’t have the evidence, John Major wouldn’t have run away from Downing Street and abandoned his cabinet room to Ian Paisley, Peter Robinson and William McCrea. But the British Government have got to learn that they can’t treat the people of Northern Ireland like dirt on the heel of their shoe. And all we’re asking for is a level playing field. We want to see a Northern Ireland that is at peace with itself, where Roman Catholics and Protestants can co-exist and where we can have respect for one another. We want to see a political framework which recognises the real social and political needs of the entire community, a new relationship between the two States who share this island. We want to see the Irish Republic coming into the 20th century by removing their illegal claim over us and then saying ‘let’s be good neighbours, let’s co-operate in the EC, let’s build new structures where we can have agreement on, like agriculture, tourism, economic regeneration of border areas’. But let’s build that future relationship on trust, and mutual recognition of each other’s right to do our own thing. But the Irish Government don’t want that, they want everything in their own pocket.

What is your response to the concept of a joint authority forming the basis of this future relationship?

Joint authorities have never worked. You can’t have a dual sovereign position. The concept hasn’t worked anywhere and I don’t think Northern Ireland should be a laboratory for a man of limited intellect, like Albert Reynolds. And although I would never argue in favour of the status quo, at least it was limiting the people who were being slaughtered and the political uncertainty. Going into a political laboratory with a man who, as I say, is of limited intellect and another man like Gerry Adams is not something which entices me. Gerry Adams has never apologised, or doesn’t believe he has to apologise for support for the IRA. Let’s be honest about what is happening right now. Let’s stop pretending we’re living in some kind of Alice-in-Wonderland world. And now they’re talking about Gerry Adams receiving a Nobel Peace Prize! And now I turn on the television news and there is Martin McGuinness being interviewed as though he were a credible politician. Martin McGuinness is an IRA man. Martin McGuinness too has failed to apologise for the murders his organisation carried out. It disgusts me to see him being packaged as a credible politician. Seeing him on television this way will alienate people, frustrate people and play right into the hands of Loyalist paramilitaries. And this is all part of the reason there is deep anger, and despondency in the hearts of the Loyalist community. But our message is that we have got to keep our heads and listen to the person who speaks as the authentic voice of the Loyalist community and that is Ian Paisley. None of these other Loyalist or Unionist politicians have the trust of the Loyalist community. My father has.

And when your father retires, do you want to be leader of the DUP?

(laughs) Let’s say I’ve a number of political ambitions and who knows what will happen? But there was a cartoon recently which showed a decrepit John Major, in the year 2010, talking to An Taoiseach, Ian Paisley Jnr, about how he didn’t believe in the permanency of the IRA cease fire! I don’t have the political ambition to be Taoiseach of the Irish Republic. I am politically ambitious but at this stage of my career I’m not even going to say ‘I want to be leader of the DUP’. Let’s just wait and see.