THE failure by the Stormont parties to agree on how to allocate £300 million of unspent money would be a shocking failure of leadership and governance at the best of times. But when it comes amidst an energy price crisis that places almost unbearable financial burdens on ordinary families, it is simply unforgivable.

And let not the fact that the parties failed to agree suggest that this is a corporate failure deserving of a plague-on-all-your-houses response. For this is entirely and exclusively down to a toxic mix of arrogance and ineptitude at the head of the leading unionist party.

This is entirely down to Sir Jeffrey Donaldson’s disastrous decision to sack First Minister Paul Givan in February (and sack him he did, for the Lagan Valley MLA was showing encouraging signs of enjoying a respectful and productive relationship with his partner Michelle O’Neill and clearly did not want to step down). The move served no practical purpose other than to strike a hardline pose for the UK and the EU, who have since proved themselves to be utterly unimpressed, and to present Mr Donaldson as a man of action in the face of non-stop criticism from other unionists and loyalists in relation to his failure to move the dial on the Protocol.

Any objective analysis of the first eight months of Mr Donaldson’s leadership will show it to have been an unmitigated disaster. And if there were any hopes that he was finding his feet and would any time now be starting to get results, they’ve been blown away by the past weeks during which he has reneged on his promise to grab the first Stormont seat that opened up for him and has shown every sign of being loath to give up his Westminster comfort blanket as the prospects of a desperately needed win on the Protocol recede further with every passing day.

And it’s not just the conflict in Ukraine and the consequent upheaval in priorities brought about by it that have placed the DUP leader in his current pickle. Long before Vladimir Putin sent his tanks across the border it had become abundantly clear that the Protocol is going nowhere and that Mr Donaldson’s best – and most likely only – way out of his dilemma was to lower the expectation of the unionist people and angle for a compromise on the issue that might be presented as the required movement. Instead, he has seen fit to try and outshout hardline Protocol absolutists in rural halls in a bid to avoid being outflanked in May’s election by the louder voices. That’s a fight he can’t win.

It is this refusal to take a step back which is also stopping Mr Donaldson from nominating a First Minister in order that the £300 million might finally be sent to where it’s desperately needed at this time of great public anxiety and stress. The desperate claim that Sinn Féin Finance Minister Conor Murphy was to blame for not just going ahead and spending the money was quickly shot down when it was revealed that legal advice showed that this was not possible.  And when a party starts kidding itself, it’s in very deep danger.