This edition of Red Lines really is a snapshot in time.

It's just after 3 o'clock on Wednesday afternoon,

and there are a lot of plate spinning in this circus tent.

There's a new PM in town.

Chris Heaton Harris remains at the NIO.

He's talking to the local party leaders this afternoon.

The Assembly meets for what could be the last time in

this short mandate tomorrow. Ministers may well be out of a job in a day and a half and we could

be facing the prospect of a fresh stormed election by Friday morning. Sam, these are the worst

possible circumstances to be recording a podcast. Everything we say could be out of date in a

matter of ours or we could be bang on about everything. What's your prediction for where we're

heading? Well, things haven't changed that much over quite a long period of time, so we might be

all right on that front. I think as things stand right now, we're almost

certain not to have an executive by the end of tomorrow. The DUP are not going back into the executive.

The law, therefore, says that there must be an election. It's very clear about that. The law can be

changed, but we've had no indication either from government ministers or from the NIO or from anybody

else that that's what they're considering. So we're likely to get an election.

That election is likely to be on the 15th of December.

And that's likely, I think we can say at this point based on what we know to see the DUP and Sinn Féin get bigger.

It's unlikely to resolve the core problem, which is really that lots of unionist voters don't want the DUP to go back

into government because they don't like the protocol. And so therefore, in several months' time,

we might be sitting here having a very similar conversation. Jane, is it your hunch that we are

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