A document to keep everyone involved

The fact that the London-Dublin document published yesterday brought a smile to the face of Sinn Fein's Gerry Adams will send alarm- bells ringing through the Unionist grassroots. If Sinn Fein is happy, the calculation goes, then its opponents have every reason to worry.

This is the mirror-image of what happened just two weeks ago when the previous joint governmental paper, known as "Propositions", produced a Trimble smile and an Adams frown. That rattled the republican grassroots; yesterday's reaction may reassure them.

The Propositions paper made no mention of the framework document, a 1995 paper which sketched out a substantial new north-south body which would build a strong Irish dimension into the governance of Ulster. Unionists hate the framework document; nationalists love it.

While Sinn Fein has many reservations about the framework document, its leaders have nonetheless described it as their bottom line.

According to one republican source: "Our position was that we would negotiate upwards to Irish unity from that. Contained within it is a dynamic, with no sense of a limit on where things could go."

But yesterday the framework document propped up again, the two governments declaring themselves "firmly committed" to its positions. The SDLP and Sinn Fein welcomes for this reflected their judgement that the nationalist agenda has been restored.

So Propositions pleased Unionists while this new document pleased nationalists. The net effect is the intended one - that while everyone has something to grumble at, everyone also has enough to keep them involved in the talks process.