Inevitably, though, the key deals, which would unlock an agreement, involve cross-negotiation: concessions on one issue are offered up in return for concessions made on others.
His other techniques are more effective: arguments – sometimes quite cross ones – negotiations, eye rolls, rewards, expressions of disappointment and exasperation.
Cross-strait negotiations will be pursued only on the basis of wide consensus.
Yesterday's proposals are the product of 17 months of cross-party negotiations.
Thousands of people joined demonstrations in support, many of them brandishing sunflowers (see picture): a rebuke to the murkiness of cross-strait negotiations.
Lamb was a key player in the ill-fated cross-party negotiations on long-term care funding in the runup to the election.
However, it appears there is wiggle room in cross-party negotiations, which have been going on since Lord Justice Leveson's report was published on 29 November.
The fallout from the shooting of Kevin McGuigan and the other problems besetting power-sharing are on the agenda in the cross-party negotiations at Stormont House which have just began.
Senator Richard G. Lugar, the Indiana Republican who recently lost a primary to a candidate condemning compromise, said the Senate was starting to operate as designed.Bills have been passed after committee deliberations, cross-party negotiations over amendments and procedures, and "a lot of time just visiting with each other".
So thinks the Scottish street of distant, high-handed Westminster, a disdain that Mr Salmond has richly capitalised on.Mr Cameron has sworn to begin cross-party negotiations on the promised new powers on September 19th, even as hangovers throb through the Yes and No camps.
