John Taylor is a patient man. At one stage yesterday at Bangor Leisure Centre, where counting of votes in the North Down and Strangford constituencies took place, it seemed the deputy leader of the Ulster Unionist Party could not turn around without being greeted by abusive opponents who jeered and heckled or sang derisive songs.
A lesser man would have been rattled, but Mr Taylor was enjoying himself. "I love winding them up," he whispered after cheerfully confronting a group of Democratic Unionist Party supporters who called him a traitor and sang, for no obvious reason: "Cheerio, cheerio, cheerio."
Mr Taylor wasn't going anywhere. He stood his ground and ignored his opponents' laughter when he told them the results in the two local constituencies had been a great victory for the UUP.
When the cries of "Cheerio" subsided in favour of a raucous rendition of "Go home, ya bum, go home", the UK Unionist Party leader, Mr Robert McCartney, joined in with some gusto, looking directly at Mr Taylor and wagging his finger at his unionist rival. Mr McCartney had just emerged from the count centre having been declared elected on the first count in his North Down constituency. Graciousness in victory it wasn't.
Mr Taylor's many television interviews during the day were interrupted by more hecklers than a professional comedian could expect to encounter in a year on the road.
"Where is your 40-foot pole?" a teenage DUP supporter demanded, referring to Mr Taylor's comment on how far he intended to stay from one particular draft of the Belfast Agreement. Mr Taylor's "collapsible barge pole", Mr McCartney called it later.
The animosity in this unionist stronghold - both constituencies are strongly pro-Union - was not confined to rivalry between the UUP and DUP. When a Progressive Unionist Party supporter challenged a young DUP rosette-wearer about his lack of manners, the DUP youth retorted: "Don't talk to me about manners when youse are the guys going about beating up people. Come back to me when you are elected."
Even the sanguine Mr Taylor wasn't above dishing out the occasional insult. Speculating to journalists that the Women's Coalition candidate might take the last seat in North Down, he remarked: "The toilet ladies, I call them".
Nor was all the bitterness between rival parties. Referring to his party colleague, Mr Peter Weir, a North Down candidate who describes himself as anti-agreement but pro-Assembly, Mr Taylor said: "Only Peter can explain whether he is Yes or No today."
Luckily there was hardly a nationalist in sight. Otherwise things might have got tense.
Mr Taylor said the UUP would seek the co-operation of the SDLP and the Alliance party to have David Trimble elected as First Minister of the new Assembly.
He said the election of the First Minister would be a matter for negotiation between the parties, but he believed it was generally agreed that Mr Trimble was the obvious candidate.
Mr Taylor was beaten into second place by Mrs Iris Robinson, wife of Peter, the deputy leader of the DUP. Mrs Robinson overturned Mr Taylor's 6,000-strong majority in last year's Westminster election to top the poll. In the neighbouring constituency of North Down, Mr McCartney topped the poll.
Mr McCartney and Mrs Robinson both insisted their parties would approach the Assembly positively and would not seek to wreck the Agreement. But they also said the establishment of cross-Border bodies with executive powers would not be acceptable.
Mr McCartney said he had been mandated "not to sit down with the representatives of armed terrorist groups and not to agree to cross-Border bodies with executive powers".
He said he was being asked to accept a form of "constitutional blackmail" which could lead to the break-up of the Union. Mr Taylor said it was not possible to say what the state of the agreement would be in the Assembly "until the last seat in all 18 constituencies is filled".
