An Extraordinary Week
I've been so rushed off my feet in the last couple of days coping with the broadcast requirements consequent on last night's Spotlight programme that the poor old diary had to take a back seat.
Earlier today i contributed this to the main website.
During the day it's been very hard to get DUP members to talk off the record, as there has been a three line whip out against any unauthorised contact with the press. But one expressed continuing sympathy with the Robinsons' plight, another reckoned the leader was "toast" and a third senior figure said they had regrettably come to the conclusion that Peter Robinson's position was untenable.
Senior DUP figures met in a third floor room at Stormont this evening. Afterwards they issued a statement accepting Iris Robinson's decision to stand down from public life. Whatever they discussed in private, they didn't deal with their leader's position in public.
When I talked to him at DUP headquarters this afternoon, Mr Robinson said he had asked the Departmental Solicitors' Office to engage an independent barrister to examine the programme, ask whatever questions they wanted and determine if the First Minister had acted appropriately.
He mentioned no timescale for this process, other than indicating that he wanted it to be speedy. But tonight Gregory Campbell told Stephen Nolan on Radio Five Live that the "investigation" if that is how it should be described should take no more than a week.
During my interview I asked Mr Robinson whether him bringing in a barrister would be seen as a sufficient independent process, given that Martin McGuinness is seeking seperate legal advice of his own. The First Minister suggested that I was in danger of impugning the independence of the Departmental Solicitor's Office.
However I have just had a conversation with the TUV leader Jim Allister who pointed out that getting an opinion from a barrister does not amount to an independent investigation. Mr Allister, who is of course himself a Q.C., pointed out that any barrister's conclusions will depend on the premise of the questions put to them. In other words, the Q.C. is unlikely to be a gum shoe digging up new facts, in the mode of Spotlight's Darragh Macintyre.
I still can't call whether Peter Robinson will survive, but I am prepared to stick my neck out with one prediction - Jim Allister Q.C. is unlikely to be the barrister hired by the Departmental Solicitors Office to examine the Robinsons' business affairs.
I'm 
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