Analysis: No need rushing to judgment but things are not looking good, writes Frank Millar in St Andrews
Brilliant blue skies burst over St Andrews yesterday morning just as another of Peter Hain's "groundhog" days threatened.
Was this a good omen? Or just another illusion? Even sceptical veterans of the peace process travel hopefully. And a few found themselves surprised yesterday by the frisson of excitement lent by an early briefing from Tony Blair's official spokesman.
However, it didn't last long as journalists went into a huddle and began to dissect the "spin".
That today's story out of the "hothouse" negotiations was dictated before lunchtime yesterday invited the widespread, and seemingly inevitable, conclusion that the British and Irish governments were preparing for failure.
"A carefully concealed failure," as one colleague put it - but a failure nonetheless, prompting the promise (or was it threat?) that Prime Minister Blair and Taoiseach Bertie Ahern are ready to "call it" later today and outline their own view of the essential components of a DUP/Sinn Féin agreement to share power.
And so it may prove to be. That said, we need be in no rush to premature judgment, not least because we have but a few hours to await the outcome.
Moreover, past experience tells us it is never quite the end of history, nor the end of "process". To which should be added that, interestingly perhaps, both Sinn Féin and the DUP last night urged caution.
One Sinn Féin source said he understood the press reaction to Downing Street "spin", in which republicans had already detected a readiness by both governments to try and dump all the blame for any failure on "the two problem parties".
He also repeated Gerry Adams's mantra that none of the remaining problems were insurmountable, insisting that "an imaginative and creative approach" and compromise on both sides could still see a deal agreed by the November 24th "deadline".
Betraying an interest at least in continuing process - if not (at least yet) in reaching actual agreement - a DUP source suggested the governments were preparing less for failure than "a soft landing".
As with the issues, so too with the cliches, there is little change. One man's soft landing is another man's failure. Neither Sinn Féin nor the DUP lack skill when it comes to the business of "spin", and are pretty adept themselves in playing "the blame game".
And on the face of it, at this writing - with negotiations, or at least talks, set to run through the night and into early morning - that is where we appear still to be.
Sinn Féin is talking an increasingly attractive talk about policing, and its desire, nay impatience, to have the issue resolved - while holding to conditions which Ian Paisley's DUP assert simply cannot be met.
Some insiders to the talks fancy they detect signs of strain and tension in the Sinn Féin command, seeing different, and possibly conflicting signals, between the language used by Gerry Adams in Belfast on Tuesday night and the terms in which Martin McGuinness defined the party's position here late on Wednesday.
However, The Irish Times was told emphatically that Mr McGuinness spoke for the party when he restated terms which, in fairness, have long been on the record.
On Wednesday night, and again yesterday, Mr McGuinness insisted the power-sharing institutions of the Belfast Agreement needed to be "up and running" before party president Gerry Adams could consider seeking an ardfheis to endorse the Police Service of Northern Ireland.
This was augmented by the new line that "the DUP has as much to do as Sinn Féin" to see the issue finally resolved - by agreeing the timetable for the devolution of policing and justice powers, and the model for the Stormont ministry to eventually assume that responsibility.
DUP sources confirmed in response that an "upfront" unconditional endorsement of the PSNI is in their view an absolute requirement from any party going into an Executive.
There are no surprises here. In fact the only real surprise is that the two governments appear only now to have decided - or at any rate grasped - that they will have no unionist partner unless this issue is resolved in a manner satisfactory to Dr Paisley.
Mr Blair's official spokesman said yesterday they always knew it would come down to the twin issues of power-sharing and policing - the challenge now being to give each side the confidence that they could move forward together.
Yet Secretary of State Peter Hain has repeatedly contended there were no remaining obstacles to the resumption of power-sharing by November 24th, and that "the DUP in particular" faced a historic judgment call.
And even yesterday Minister for Foreign Affairs Dermot Ahern told The Irish Times it was wrong to conclude that resolving policing was now "a pre-condition" for a deal. In fairness to the Minister it wasn't clear that even he believed that any more.