Northern Ireland remains without a government but the negotiations to restore an Executive continue.
Groucho Marx once said “those are my principles and if you don’t like them, I have others.” The same could be said for James Brokenshire and deadlines!
The Secretary of State for Northern Ireland had set Monday 30th October as his latest deadline, but it came and passed like any other day and every other recent deadline.
Both of the largest parties, the DUP and Sinn Fein remained in talks until 9pm on Monday night but no agreement was forthcoming.
However, not to be deterred, James Brokenshire released a statement to say there had been progress so he would defer the introduction of a budget through Westminster.
Talks continued on Tuesday, however, later in the day it emerged that party whips at Westminster had already been instructed to allow time for a budget bill on the week beginning 13th November - another date for the diary of anyone following the current Stormont debacle.
On Halloween night, the two largest parties continued their cloak and dagger approach to talks with the three smaller parties continuing to complain they have been kept in the dark.
The UUP, almost 20 years after signing up to the present constitutional arrangements, belatedly called for an introduction of voluntary coalition to allow the parties who want to form an Executive to do so.
The SDLP repeated their mantra of asking the DUP and Sinn Fein to publish details of any progress that had been made. Their continued requests seemed to fall on deaf ears and perhaps reveal both that there is still quite a distance to travel between the two parties and confirmed their own irrelevance to the process.
Talks between the parties continued but by this stage they were simply going through the motions with no hope of a breakthrough.
By Wednesday Brokenshire followed a well-trodden path from the front of Stormont House to his lectern to give yet another update on the political situation.
He warned that the country will begin to run out of resources at the end of November and so he will start the process to bring forward a budget for Northern Ireland through the Westminster Parliament.
He attempted to explain that doing this does not mean a move to direct rule, any more than the passing of legislation to set a Regional Rate did back in April. This appears to be little more than delaying the inevitable but he wasn’t fooling anyone. Surely passing a budget is one of the basic tasks of any government?
The DUP seemed relaxed with the news that Brokenshire would be introducing a budget from Westminster. Having an administration at Stormont is clearly less of a priority for the party when they hold such a strong hand with the Conservatives.
After all, the party’s leader at Westminster, Nigel Dodds was named ‘negotiator of the year’ at the Spectator parliamentarian of the year awards in London this week.
By the end of the week the blame game was in full swing between the DUP and Sinn Fein over who was responsible for the failure to reach agreement.
It has been nearly 300 days since the collapse of the Executive, how much longer can it really last and perhaps more worryingly, do people even care?