It takes the DUP at least 50 years to learn a political lesson or to grasp the reality of a situation

(Mr Lyons’ letter can be read here: ‘As a party we realise that unionism needs to welcome people of all backgrounds and traditions’)

Anyone who has reflected on political developments here over recent decades must now realise, if they hadn’t already done so some 40 years ago, that it takes the DUP at least 50 years to learn a lesson or to grasp the reality of a situation.

Let us start in the mid 1960s with the O’Neill Must Go campaign led by the then future leader of the DUP, the Rev Ian Paisley.

This campaign kicked off when the Irish Taoiseach Sean Lemass visited Stormont at the invitation of the then PM Terence O’Neill, only to be met with a fusillade of snowballs from Mr Paisley and his supporters.

Now more than 50 years later we have the Irish Taoiseach and his deputy making regular trips to Stormont, where they criticise not only unionists but also the British government, and not a whimper of protest from the DUP.

In the mid 1970s the DUP played a leading role in bringing down the power sharing Sunningdale Agreement. Yet almost 50 years later during the three year Stormont hiatus the DUP were literally pleading with Sinn Fein to return to the power sharing executive.

At the time of the Sunningdale collapse the then Prime Minister Harold Wilson enraged unionists by describing us as a shower of spongers, sponging of the British government; or words to that effect.

But given the excessive smugness of the DUP when accepting the £1bn to prop up the Tory government; the RHI ‘fill your boots it’s the Treasury that’s paying for it’ scandal; non means-tested free medical prescriptions; non means-tested free public transport for over 60s; and three airports for an area the size of Yorkshire we must surely now agree that almost 50 years ago Harold Wilson was right.

Any party that remains in the slow learners’ class for over five decades must surely face the ultimate sanction — expulsion! I would not be surprised if DUP leader Arlene Foster decides to jump ship before the next assembly elections.

AC Thompson, Dungannon