Christopher Heaton-Harris to push back date of Stormont election call yet further: report

BBC News NI reported this morning that it understands such a move to be in the offing.

If so, it would be just the latest blown deadline of recent years on the watch of the Northern Ireland Office.

Back in October last year, Northern Ireland Secretary Christopher Heaton-Harris told Parliament: “If we do not get a reformed Executive by one minute past midnight on the 28th of October, I will be calling an election, that’s what the law requires me to do, and that is what I will be doing.”

But that date came and went, with no election called.

Then on November 9 he announced that he will push back his decision on naming an election date until December 8, and then pushed it back further to January 19.

The idea was that if those dates passed with no Executive formed, it would start the clock ticking down to mid-April, by which time the government must have staged a new election.

More to follow.

• 'You are wrong' says new Northern Ireland Secretary during terse exchange as he rejects idea his credibility is tarnished barely two months into the job