Upper Bann
UUP hold

David Trimble may have undergone a roller-coaster ride since his election as leader of the largest party in Northern Ireland in 1995, but at least his constituency will remain truly loyal - or at least re-elect him. He actually only got 43 per cent of the overall vote in Upper Bann, admittedly in an eight-way contest, in 1997. The constituency lies in the heart of Northern Ireland, having no sea coast and touching the border with the Republic at no point. It lies to the south of Lough Neagh, the province's great lake, and it is named after the River Bann, which flows into it. The seat covers the Craigavon district, which include the twin urban centres of Lurgan and Portadown on which the new town of Craigavon was founded, but it just did not grow to meet expectations. Portadown is the site of the protracted tensions as Orangemen seek to march through the Catholic enclave of the Garvaghy Road. This area has direct access to Northern ireland's M1 motorway, which runs through the seat. Banbridge is an important market town on the dual carriageway and main route to the border and Dublin. There are a variety of industries in the constituency and tourism based on the excellent coarse fishing on the Bann. It is sincerely hoped that these symbols might represent a peaceful future, and co-operation and communication rather than divisiveness and renewed stand offs between warring communities. Trimble's seat captures much of Northern Ireland's entangled history and current position.

David Trimble, leader of the Ulster Unionists and First Minister of the tenuous Northern Ireland power-sharing Executive set up in 1998, was first elected in 1990. Like many leaders, a man who has moved towards the centre from more radical origins, he stands in a minority of four - two of whom are retiring - among his nine Parliamentary colleagues, most of whom he has dubbed "the Woodentops". A deft performer in a culture of pedestrian black-and-whiters, a "giant among pigmies" (according to The Observer), he was born in 1944 into a family of classic Protestant siege mentality, educated at Bangor Grammar School and Queen's University Belfast where he read law and became a law lecturer. Carrot-haired, with a pink, Ulster-Scots face and a hurried short-stepped gait, though influenced by IRA-defector Sean O'Callaghan's view that "the war is over", he knows he could go the way of all Ulster Unionist flesh, by emulating the fate of his power-sharing predecessor Brian Faulkner.