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DAVID TRIMBLE
A law lecturer at Queen's University in Belfast and a non-practicing barrister by profession, Trimble has been the leader of the Ulster Unionists since September, 1995.
Trimble was born in Bangor, a seaside resort in County Down. His father was a junior civil servant while his mother came from a family whose building business failed. That he ascended to leadership of the Ulster Unionists was something of an upset, since he is not of the Anglo-Irish "squirearchy" that for generations has controlled unionism in Northern Ireland.
He leap-frogged over several others to the top of the party after refusing to support John Major's government in a parliamentary vote on European Union fishing policy. It was his way of underlining his opposition to giving any significant power to a cross-border council that might be formed with the Irish republic.
Ruddy, bespectacled and unimposing, Trimble has been described as being "an effortlessly articulate but routinely intransigent defender of the Union."
He counts among his pleasures listening to opera and Elvis Presley.
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