God is on the side of those who want the Belfast Agreement to experience rigor mortis, according to the DUP. But there's still a chance that the DUP, whatever about God, might be disappointed.
Let's all pray for failure, urged Ian Paisley junior yesterday, for it's the "righteous" thing to do. The Da, Doctor Paisley, was last night predicting that these prayers would be answered. God was on the side of the anti-Belfast Agreement bloc, he was certain.
"I am confident that there will be no deal . . . I don't think at this late hour they can sell the pass," the DUP leader asserted outside Castle Buildings, Stormont.
It was late evening and it was unclear whether such evangelical conviction would spur the Ulster Unionist Party and Sinn Fein to upset the Almighty, and deny the Paisleys their day of triumph.
The view of the Yes camp, and that of Tony Blair and Bertie Ahern was in line with what the Northern poet W. R. Rodgers wrote of the said Doctor, "There but for the grace of God goes God."
Tony Blair was stuck between parliaments, the Scottish Parliament and the Northern Assembly - one to open today in Edinburgh, and one in Belfast to . . . close? open? put on hold? As one wag said in the press tent, "Tony Blair never closed one parliament but he opened another".
For much of yesterday, according to Eddie McGrady of the SDLP, the talks were stuck on amber. It was as if the participants arrived at the political traffic lights with their eyes shut. They couldn't tell whether amber would turn to red or to green.
John Taylor was still playing the odds yesterday. A two per chance of success, he said on Tuesday. Yesterday morning it was four per cent. Looking good, hey! But by teatime it was "minus three per cent". No wonder Dr Paisley looked so chipper.
Yet, as day merged into night at Stormont, Alistair Campbell - the British leader's chief spinner - was maintaining that a deal was still possible. It was all down to "the quality of the commitment" to IRA disarmament that the republican movement might provide.
There was even speculation that the republican movement's P. O' Neill might fax a form of words to Castle Buildings that could annoy the Deity, but salvage the Belfast Agreement.
Mr O'Neill's fax must have been decommissioned or put beyond use because he didn't go that far. But just before the midnight deadline for agreement there was a flurry of activity.
There was a strong whiff that Mr O'Neill had given Gerry Adams and Martin McGuinness the imprimatur to offer a commitment that was very pleasing to Tony Blair and Bertie Ahern.
The beginning of IRA disarmament before the end of the year, and possibly sooner, we were being told. Historic stuff, as far as Tony and Bertie were concerned. But David Trimble was having problems selling the deal to his troops.
