Comment by TUV leader Jim Allister on today’s developments at Stormont:
“As the DUP is bounced, it seems that to add to mandatory coalition we now have insistence on mandatory agreement! What’s next, mandatory consent? Let’s see how long they hold out.
“When “compromise” is demanded of Unionism it invariably means another down payment on Sinn Féin’s demands as the price of them allowing a government (until the next contrived crisis when more concessions will be required).
“A system that operates on this basis is not worth having.
“To me there is something quite distasteful and blackmailing about an offer of Treasury money to sort health, but only if devolution on forced terms. If health deserves money, and it does, then, it is wrong to play politics over it. Lives of real people more important than the life of the Executive.”