Should a vacancy arise at the top, the DUP's got talent . . .

NEWTON'S OPTIC:WHO ARE the front runners to succeed Peter Robinson as DUP leader, should a vacancy arise? The Irish Timestakes a look at some of the candidates.

Gwendolene Gloucester MLA

Widely seen as a moderniser, Gloucester believes that a woman’s place is in the kitchen but it should be a nice modern kitchen, with one of those coffee machines that froths the milk. While not a supporter of powersharing as such, she is prepared to share the secret recipes for Protestant tray-bakes.

“I see no reason why our Catholic neighbours should eat only rice crispy buns, with perhaps a few raisins thrown in on saint’s days, when they could be enjoying caramel squares or even pineapple flapjacks,” she told Unionist Woman’s Twice-Weekly.

Gareth Heinz MP

Ultra-hardliner regarded as less hardline than the other ultra-hardliners, making him a possible soft-hardliner. Heinz is more likely to be offered the deputy leadership as part of a unity ticket, although it would be wise not to use the term “unity ticket” in his presence.

Cecil Dudds MP

Once seen as Robinson’s natural successor, Dudds’s star has fallen in recent years as everyone in the party gradually realises they can’t stand him. However, he still commands respect as the only senior DUP figure with a degree from an actual university, rather than a mail-order Bible college in Kentucky. Dudds is also admired for his constituency work, dealing regularly with the Ulster Development Agency, the Ulster Venture Fund, the Local Venture Fund, the Ulster Funding Fund and the Red Hand Commando (surely “Regional Housing Committee”? – Ed)

Rev Colin Rally

A keen yachtsman in his younger days, Rally has long been concerned by the shortage of buoys around the coast of Co Antrim and has called on Stormont to pay for more, even if they have to be hired.

"I know the public is behind me in this campaign," he told Hello Ulster Sailormagazine. "Wherever I go, I hear people behind me saying 'rent buoys'."

Kyle Cahoots jnr

A leading scion of the Cahoots dynasty, which has dominated Northern Ireland politics for as long as anyone cares to remember, Cahoots was slightly compromised by the Seymour Apartments property scandal in which the entire town Fortabogie was accidentally demolished by a “runaway digger”. Only Cahoots’s own luxury holiday home survived, from the steps of which he immediately vowed to “rebuild my career”. He has since conceded that, under the circumstances, this remark “might have been in poor taste”.

Hamish Duckworth MP

A noted historian, linguist and political thinker, as mostly noted on his Ulster-Scots blog, Awae An’ Shyte. Accused last year of watching X-rated films while naked in a hotel bedroom, Duckworth claimed it was all a misunderstanding over the meaning of “movie buff”.

Pastor Edmund Pasteur

DUP science spokesman and former minister for sports and hobbies, Pastor Pasteur spends his weekends (except Sundays) censoring information panels in visitors’ centres with a big orange marker. A firm opponent of the theory of gravity, he believes that everything is instead pressed down by the force of “heavenly repulsion”. This week, most DUP voters would probably agree.