Nobody expected to wait quite this long. Not the sections of the London press that railed so vociferously against the very notion that Theresa May might do a deal with the Democratic Unionist Party. Not the bulk of the Conservative and Unionist party that had, just recently, repainted the fading letters of “and Unionist” on its sign in a bolder hue.
Not even the Northern Ireland press that warned knowingly, as the days wore on, that the DUP always drove a hard bargain.
The Queen’s Speech has come and gone. And still, as the discussions deepen and drag, there has been no definitive amity between the Conservatives and their potential providers of “confidence and supply”. Instead there are leaks to the press, talk – and then denials – of enormous cash injections, and dark hints that the DUP must not be taken for granted. The DUP reportedly wants a soft border and a hard Brexit – or does it?
There are rumours of Treasury tight-fistedness, Northern Ireland Office collywobbles, and, finally, suggestions of a rapprochement from Jeffrey Donaldson, the DUP chief whip at Westminster. Meanwhile, Mrs May is dangling in a harsh wind.
The irony is that the DUP has been preparing for years for this very moment, the rare instant when its influence can be maximised in a Westminster hung parliament. Such an eventuality was uppermost in the party’s thinking in 2010, and again in 2015, and now – amid the Conservatives’ unexpected electoral chaos – it has finally come to pass.
The DUP got what it desperately wanted, and that might be part of the problem: the possibilities are proving too much to compute. While the party is experienced in political horse trading, it is in an unfamiliar market.