Unionist voters are showing a remarkable willingness to tolerate failure by their politicians

(If SF waits for unionists to help plan Irish unity, it may wait a long time).

In my view what makes the situation much worse is how many of unionism’s present woes are self-inflicted.

Over the last four years, during Arlene Foster’s leadership of the DUP, unionism has lost its majority in the Assembly and a majority of the Northern Irish seats at Westminster.

A dormant nationalism has been reawakened, and some polls put Northern Ireland’s position in the UK on a knife-edge.

The DUP itself has lost 10 MLAs and has fewer councillors than it did four years ago.

The party’s arrogance prevented Mrs Foster stepping aside for a few weeks when the RHI scandal was uncovered and instead Northern Ireland was without an Assembly for almost three years.

When the Assembly did return it was only as a result of Sinn Féin’s central demands around the Irish language having been met.

And such was the rush to get back into office there was a complete failure to negotiate a financial package to deal with the huge challenges faced by our public services.

To make matters worse, under its present leadership the DUP, despite holding the balance of power at Westminster, managed to allow same-sex marriage for Northern Ireland and liberal abortion laws – to say nothing of a Brexit which leaves Northern Ireland semi-detached from the UK’s economic union.

Perhaps the most remarkable thing of all is that the unionist electorate have to date been prepared to tolerate this record of failure.

It remains to be seen whether back-bench DUP MLAs who have played no part in this situation will be as understanding if their own seats are threatened at the next election.

Sarah B Davidson (Ms), Lisburn