They have adopted a three-pronged attack strategy, claiming that it's a plot by Basil McCrea to wrest the leadership from Sir Reg, that it's a sign the UUP is as "divided as ever"; or that it represents backtracking on a manifesto pledge.


Say what you like and hope that something sticks, seems to be the DUP's slightly desperate tactic at the moment.


But the bottom line is this: the DUP is obviously very uncomfortable with the idea of being left alone in government with Sinn Fein.


The increasingly Pooterish Jeffrey Donaldson insists that his party is examining ways of ending mandatory coalition, yet if that were true, then surely, if only as a starting point, he would be encouraging the UUP, SDLP and Alliance to form the Official Opposition?
I know I have been on this territory before (since 1998) and it remains my conviction that the lack of an Opposition is fundamentally damaging to the democratic process.


What we have at the moment is an administration (Government is too grand and too inaccurate a term to use) with a Programme for government based on lowest common denominator points of agreement between the four main parties.


The PfG doesn't, in overarching terms, make a button of difference to Northern Ireland. There is nothing that wouldn't have been included had we still had Direct Rule. There is no radical or revolutionary agenda for creating a new Northern Ireland; no sign at all that devolution is making a difference.


Mandatory coalition will produce uninspired, lacklustre, civil service-driven and merely functional legislation. There will be no joined-up thinking, because there can be no common approach or guiding principle beyond that of self survival.


And since the Finance Minister's task doesn't go much beyond presiding over the divvy-up of the annual subvention from the UK Exchequer, there will be very little room for manoeuvre on that front, either. To be honest, it's hard to tell the difference between the Stormont set-up and an English County Council.


I accept that the SDLP/UUP hold different views on the constitutional position and on a range of socio-economic issues and that if they were to form the Opposition they would soon face divisive issues. In other words, the Opposition itself would mirror the weaknesses of the mandatory coalition.



Quite apart from that problem, the SDLP is presently investigating the possibility of a pact with Fianna Fail, and if such a deal were concluded it would make it probably impossible to do a separate deal with the UUP.


But there has to be something better than government based on mutual veto, mutual loathing, contradictory outlooks and the preservation of the existing power-blocs. Put bluntly, if Northern Ireland is ever to resemble a "normal" political society (the whole point, I would have thought, of the Good Friday/St Andrews agreements) then it must be able to move away from a system which has at its very heart a sectarian headcount and mandatory coalition.


Most important of all, though, we deserve a government which is based upon unambiguous accountability. With 95% of the MLAs "whipped" by the parties of the Executive Committee, there cannot be genuine accountability. When legislation cannot be held up to rigorous scrutiny, there cannot be accountability. When the electorate doesn't have a choice between an outgoing government and a credible alternative, there cannot be accountability. When the Executive Committee consists of little more than the occasional reshuffling of the same parties, there cannot be accountability. When there isn't a formal, funded, effective Opposition, there cannot be accountability. And when you don't have accountability it is inevitable that you will have bad government.



The novelty of the DUP/Sinn Fein love-in will wear off. The ministers cannot, indefinitely, continue to put every major decision out to review or consultation. The public and the media - happy enough at the moment to give the fledgling government a lot of leeway - will become increasingly critical.



There are some very tough decisions to be made on rates, water charges, planning and education (to name but a very few) and little evidence that the outcome of each decision will be anything other than a jumbled and entirely unsatisfactory compromise. Worse still, since the four main parties will have given each decision a nod of some sort, be it enthusiastic or otherwise, there is little likelihood of critical analysis on the floor of the Assembly, let alone in the committees.



It has been said that if the UUP and SDLP withdrew from the Executive "they would be losing the Ministerial influence they currently enjoy, and could indeed be consigning themselves to oblivion in an Assembly so heavily dominated by the DUP and Sinn Fein."
At the moment, however, the DUP and Sinn Fein have demonstrated a willingness to gang-up on the junior parties: Margaret Ritchie a month ago and Michael McGimpsey at the start of November
All of this leaves the UUP and SDLP in an absurd position - ganged-up against in the Executive and in the Assembly and tarred with the same "but-aren't-you-also-in-the-Executive?" brush when things go wrong and deprived of any credit when things go right. Being neither fish nor fowl is bad for your party and bad for government.



The task of creating an Official Opposition is going to be a difficult one, not least because neither the DUP nor Sinn Fein is keen on the idea. Jeffrey Donaldson has hinted that the DUP is looking at ways of securing a "voluntary coalition government at Stormont", but it seems unlikely that much will happen. Indeed, it looks like a cosmetic exercise designed to keep internal and external critics at bay.
Meanwhile, the existing arrangements encourage incompetence and poor government. The trouble is, it really is impossible to pinpoint and punish the weakest links in the system. And oddly enough, that's the one issue the DUP seems most reluctant to address.



It is true, of course, that if the UUP and SDLP, singly or together, withdrew from the Executive in the near future, they would be leaping into a no man's land. The mere act of describing yourself as the Opposition won't allow you to be the Opposition. Yet it is equally true that the ongoing lack of an Official Opposition will undermine democracy and ensure a form of government which will, in fact and in effect, be less accountable and less relevant than Direct Rule. Is that what we waited 35 years for?