'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

Chris Heaton-Harris was being quizzed on the BBC Good Morning Ulster radio show about his decision to delay calling a new Stormont election.

Mr Heaton-Harris is a former chairman of Brexiteer outfit the European Research Group, or ERG, and backed Boris Johnson against Rishi Sunak in the recent Tory leadership melee.

The MP for Daventry in central England since 2010, he has been chief of the Northern Ireland Office for a little over two months now - the fifth person to hold the post since 2019.

Part of today's radio interview with him centred on his much-touted intention to schedule a new Stormont election - something which the law requires him to do, since there is still no devolved government six months after the previous election.

Anticipating this, three weeks ago Mr 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 October 28 came and went and he did nothing.

Then on Wednesday, November 9, he announced that he will push back his decision on naming an election date until December 8, with the option of then pushing it back further to January 19.

All this means that it could be mid-April by the time any election is actually staged, instead of mid-December as was initially thought.

Speaking on Radio Ulster this morning, Mr Heaton-Harris was told by the presenter: "You have put yourself in a position where people are now doubting your credibility. On this programme last week John O'Dowd of Sinn Fein said you'd made Liz Truss look competent in the way you'd handled all this."

The reply came from Mr Heaton-Harris: "I just completely disagree with that."

Presenter: "Why?"

HH: "Because you're wrong."

Presenter: "You made a point of saying: 'listen, I'm going to do something' [and then] did not do it... it's just deadline after deadline and the reality is you don't necessarily follow through with your threats. And that's the problem for you now in these negotiations with the parties."

HH: "I don't see that as a problem for me."

The discussion then moved on to different areas.

It is not the first time the Northern Ireland Office (NIO) has faced questions about its credibility after setting and then ignoring deadlines.

After Sinn Fein collapsed Stormont in January 2017, the NIO made repeated pledges to impose Westminster-rule on the Province, but then did nothing when its bluff was called.

For example, the then-Northern Ireland Secretary James Brokenshire told parties he wanted a devolution restored by October 30, 2017, or else the "only option remaining would be to legislate for a budget at Westminster"... only to let this elapse without taking action.

That blown deadline came on the heels of other near-identical ones the previous March and June, which likewise sailed by without anything happening.

More from this reporter:

Government 'set to dock MLA pay today while side-stepping new election date'

Protocol impasse: UUP boss says the idea an election will end Stormont stalemate is 'nonsense'