THERE’S more optimism than there’s been for a long time about the prospect of the DUP finally realising that it ran out of road on its preposterous Stormont boycott some considerable time ago.

The choreography is obvious, not to say embarrassingly unsubtle. Tory Government figures have been speaking positively about significant progress being made on securing what the DUP wants – although the fact is that no-one outside of the party’s golden circle has any idea of what exactly it is that the party wants. And if that seems bizarre, the good news is that that very lack of clarity now offers party leader Jeffrey Donaldson huge leeway when it comes to finally coming clean on whether or not his unknown demands have been met.

On Monday morning a billion Euro sweetener, contributed to by the UK, the EU and Ireland in that order of generosity, was announced to great fanfare. The fanfare didn’t feature a fiddle, a tin whistle or uileann pipes, it came to the skirl of bagpipes while youngsters did a sword dance around the main political players – a tableau which left its audience in no doubt as to the target of this welcome munificence.

Even the alleged spat that we’re told has soured the billion-euro milk of human kindness is in reality beneficial to what London, Brussels and Dublin have been trying to achieve.

Late last week, Taoiseach Leo Varadkar thumbed the lapels of his expensive suit, stuck out his chest and intoned his strong belief that there will be a united Ireland in his lifetime. It was nothing new or newsworthy, Mr Varadkar and Tanáiste and Fianna Fáil leader Micheál Martin have polished their republican credentials in the past when circumstances demanded (those circumstance mostly being another boost in the polls for Sinn Féin). 

This time around Mr Varadkar was doing his best Michael Collins impression in the full knowledge that a couple of days later that billion-euro sweetener would be ostentatiously announced in Belfast.

On Tuesday Secretary of State Chris Heaton-Harris publicly rebuked Mr Varadkar for daring to speak about constitutional change – much to the delight of unionists. Cue the familiar round of accusation and recrimination in which, all too predictably, Mr Varadkar was championed by nationalists and Mr Heaton-Harris was championed by unionists. 

But if we take a step back we can see that what the British side in this ongoing psychodrama require most at present is some measure of reconciliation with the unionist community, which has been estranged from the Tory Government for some considerable time now. And with the same Tories telling us they feel that they’re close to understanding what the DUP needs, it doesn’t take a genius to work out that the next statement from No.10 will be delivered in an atmosphere much more congenial to a decision by Jeffrey Donaldson to reverse his disastrous decision to pull down Stormont.

The loudmouths are vocal – the game is afoot.