The Ulster Unionists will this week begin a search for a new leader after its disastrous election losses forced David Trimble to resign.

Trimble, the Nobel peace prize laureate, announced he would step down over the weekend after he lost his seat and the once biggest party in Northern Ireland was reduced to only one MP.

The Democratic Unionist Party hailed Trimble's defeat with a triumphant show of drumming and cries of "traitor" in his Upper Bann constituency.

The DUP now has nine MPs and is today expected to seize control of a number of councils.

Meanwhile the new Northern Ireland secretary, Peter Hain, arrives in Belfast this morning.

Hain predicted yesterday that the prime minister would "crack the problem in the coming period" and there would be a "new political dispensation" in Northern Ireland.