DUP, the dog in the manger
It's official : they are overplaying their hand, and playing the clock. All parties are obliged to go through the motions of four attempts to form an executive, which will all be shot down by the DUP. So either the UK declares war on the EU, as the DUP requires, or... there will be new elections at Christmas.

In which case, Geoffrey Donaldson will be the turkey.

The Democratic Unionist party is to seek an urgent meeting with Boris Johnson to warn him it will stall power-sharing at Stormont until Christmas if the Northern Ireland protocol is not modified.

A senior party figure said it will push the responsibility for Stormont back on to the prime minister: "We will say he has a choice: Stormont or the protocol."

The ultimatum came as the UK justice secretary, Dominic Raab, pledged to do "whatever necessary" to alter the protocol, which mandates checks on goods crossing into Northern Ireland from Great Britain.

But the DUP's trust in the Conservative party, which was already at a low ebb, was shattered last week when the Northern Ireland secretary, Brandon Lewis, hinted the government was pulling back from threats to introduce laws to unilaterally disapply parts of the protocol.

_{It is rightly acknowledged that people of faith have no monopoly of virtue - Queen Elizabeth II}