Extract from a report written by John Holmes to Tony Blair, Friday 10 April 1998

Transcript

The Prime Minister spoke to Trimble several times on the phone. He wrote to Trimble unilaterally agreeing that Maryfield would close by the end of the year. We enlisted David Montgomery. We deployed the big picture arguments we could. But Trimble still seemed to be losing the argument (and to share most of his colleagues’ reservation). It began to look hopeless, and despair took hold.