All the discussions which followed the declaration of results in the Northern Ireland Assembly elections have highlighted the DUP's belief that it has a veto over any proposals for political progress in Northern Ireland.
There can be no doubt that the DUP, which is meeting Secretary of State Paul Murphy later today (Monday), has now emerged as the majority voice within unionism, a position which it will find presents responsibilities as well as opportunities.
However, in one sense, nothing has really changed, as the DUP throughout its history has always sent out the message that it was capable of wrecking all plans which did not have its full approval.
The most notable example of this came in 1974, when Ian Paisley joined forces with loyalist paramilitary groups to bring down the Sunningdale initiative.
At that time, the power-sharing experiment involved liberal unionists linking up with Alliance and the SDLP without a Sinn Féin representative in sight.
Even this limited arrangement was a step too far for Mr Paisley, and, when the cross-party executive stood down in the face of loyalist intimidation, he claimed he had won a famous victory.
Just over a decade later, his verdict on the next serious blueprint put forward by the British government, the Anglo-Irish Agreement, was, as expressed at a rally outside Belfast City Hall: ''Never, never, never.''
He could not stomach the idea of closer links between London and Dublin, although, again, it was a deal which left Sinn Féin firmly out in the cold.
Mr Paisley's campaign against the Anglo-Irish Agreement was a failure, and it was only eventually set aside through the structures contained in the document signed on Good Friday in 1998.
By this stage, Sinn Féin had reached centre stage and was able – together with the Ulster Unionists, the SDLP, and, remarkably, the DUP – to accept ministerial posts at Stormont.
Mr Paisley still insisted that the Good Friday Agreement had to be destroyed, although in his heart of hearts he must have concluded that, if he could turn the clock back, he would have taken a very different attitude towards both Sunningdale and the 1985 Anglo-Irish accord.
He is finally the leader of the largest unionist party today but he has discovered that he cannot get his hands on the spoils of power without reaching an accommodation with Sinn Féin.
His preferred and publicly declared solution to this dilemma is that Sinn Féin should disband, a suggestion which leaves even his most trusted colleagues rolling their eyes in the background.
Having spurned every invitation to extend the hand of friendship to moderate nationalism in the past, he finds that the future represents a choice between the political sidelines and sitting across the table from those who control the republican movement.
As he approaches his 80th year, and reviews what he has really achieved in his career, Mr Paisley surely has much to consider.
