The role of the presidency has changed dramatically in the last three decades, and what had previously been considered fairly dull elections have been enlivened in recent years with a range of different candidates and visions for the office.
Recent polling shows the party well ahead of both the UUP and the TUV, meaning the current deadlock would simply be reproduced.
Hopes for normal, non-sectarian and growth-focused politics have been dashed as rent-seeking hard-liners dominate at Stormont.
Getting Stormont up and running for the Belfast Agreement’s anniversary in April seems to be setting the pace, but only the DUP can make that happen.
Why has neither he nor Heaton-Harris pushed back against Sinn Fein’s nonsensical claims about ‘joint authority’ with Dublin?
Also: watch as those who studiously ignored Trimble over the Protocol neuter his memory to canonise him in death.
It is worth remembering that the current backlash would be much worse had the Government not subsequently acted to unilaterally extend ‘grace periods’.
My friend David Gauke was right to be vigilant about his important principle, but wrong to say it is in peril in the UK.
Peter Kyle says that ministers are not representing the whole province and engaging with all communities in Northern Ireland.
“Rarely can such a crucial issue have been given such cursory and one-sided analysis in our media” – the fifth piece in a week-long series.
Also: Drakeford strikes a deal with the Welsh Nationalists in Cardiff Bay; Sturgeon insists she’s going nowhere.
We need to deliver a more robust, and more balanced, outcome than we could in 2019.
Such specious arguments are more for their own activists’ consumption than a serious effort to persuade British ministers.
A section of the commentariat was so unbalanced by the referendum result that it now automatically sides with the EU.
“Rarely can such a crucial issue have been given such cursory and one-sided analysis in our media” – the final piece in a week-long series.