Unionist parties have some horse-trading ahead of them

Northern Secretary Theresa Villiers told some 350 Ulster Unionist delegates at the party's annual conference in Belfast on Saturday that they were convening at an "auspicious time".

Auspicious would not be the word that would come to most people’s minds, it must be said, as the Northern parties approach very difficult talks.

One of the big issues on a very long talks agenda is welfare reform, a matter on which Sinn Féin and the SDLP have dug in, while the British government, with the acquiescence of the unionist parties, has taken a diametrically opposing position.

Otherwise Ms Villiers told delegates the things they like to hear: that the UUP has always done "the right things for Northern Ireland"; that Conservatives were "never neutral on the union" and that Charlie Flanagan would have no involvement in negotiations relating to matters internal to Northern Ireland.

Party leader Mike Nesbitt has a united party that aside from the talks has a big challenge ahead – to get the UUP back into the House of Commons, where it is seatless.

Nesbitt used the conference to make a direct pitch to DUP leader Peter Robinson for an electoral pact, offering not to run a UUP candidate in North Belfast to give DUP deputy leader Nigel Dodds a stronger chance of holding the seat from a growing Sinn Féin threat.

In return he asked for a free run for an Ulster Unionist in Fermanagh South Tyrone to try and wrest the seat from Sinn Féin's Michelle Gildernew.

The UUP lost by just 50 votes in 2001 in what is now a majority nationalist constituency, but a single UUP candidate standing against Ms Gildernew and an SDLP candidate would make for an interesting tussle.

However, probably the pact Nesbitt craves most was not mentioned in his conference speech: South Belfast, SDLP leader Alasdair McDonnell’s seat, which he held comfortably four years ago when Sinn Féin allowed him a solo nationalist run.

The obvious swap would be East Belfast for South Belfast, Ulster Unionists standing aside in the east to help Peter Robinson's burning ambition to win back the seat from Alliance's Naomi Long.

Expect some serious both overt and covert UUP-DUP horse-trading on South Belfast and East Belfast in the weeks and months ahead.