There's been a lot of talk in recent days about a unionist pact at the next assembly election.

The DUP leader fuelled that speculation through comments he made to the Belfast Telegraph at the weekend,

though he never actually used the word pact.

So when is a pact not a pact, maybe more of an informal arrangement or understanding?

And do pacts work anyway for unionists or nationalists?

John Tong, are Pacts here a sensible idea or the road to nowhere?

The road to nowhere in terms of an assembly election, there's absolutely no way that

Doug B to UUP will step aside to help the DUP or vice versa. So it's an understanding, it's an arrangement.

I interpret this as a plea from Geoffrey Donaldson to try and bolster Eunice voting discipline, to stop Eunice voters straying into Alliance territory or even across the divide.

Suzanne Breen, we'll come on to that interview with Sir Geoffrey Donaldson in just a moment.

But as an opening thought, does all this chat about some kind of unity of purpose for unionism

hint at pure desperation in your view?

I don't know if it does or it doesn't.

Obviously, the DUP is under absolutely massive pressure. Would it be so keen on

voting arrangements? If it was way ahead in the polls, I don't know, it might be treating its

opponents, its unionist rivals with contempt. In terms of pact, it's a word, obviously, that

inspires very powerful emotions in Northern Ireland.

It's a very loaded word. Do pacts work? Yes, sometimes they do. Other times they don't.

And I think we have to remember that there are proper official pacts where candidates withdraw in Westminster elections.

But then there's also the Nod and the Wink Pact

where a party runs a paper candidate, a very weak candidate, so as not to take votes away

from the candidate that it really wants to see winning the seat.

...