Time to play guess the party?

Hello again.

Last week, with tongue-in-cheek, I suggested that the DUP were a true cross-border party by putting controversial planning decisions at the heart of the political debate. Others went further and labelled the post-Causeway DUP the new Fianna Fail.

But this could all get very confusing now that the original Fianna Fail have declared they're coming north.

In such circumstances it's predicted that it's actually the SDLP who will become the new Fianna Fail in Northern Ireland.

But Dermot Ahern, the Irish Foreign Minister who's leading the party's year-long deliberations on the matter, says he's not in favour of taking seats at Westminster.

Party of destiny?

So does that make Fianna Fail the new Sinn Fein?

Sir Reg Empey sees danger for unionists with warnings about Irish unity by stealth while Ian Paisley has no apparent problem with the move. So are the UUP the new DUP and the DUP the new UUP?

Confused? Then consider this conundrum. In whose interests is Irish unity?

One politico I met this week mused that the DUP have more to gain from a united Ireland than Sinn Fein.

With majority rule established in a northern province the DUP would have absolute regional power. Sinn Fein would be out in the cold.

Spinning tectonic plates

So, does that make the DUP the new Sinn Fein and Sinn Fein the new DUP?

This week on the programme we do our best to get a seismological reading on how the tectonic plates of Irish politics are shifting.

Reporter Rosy Billingham examines the challenges for the Sinn Fein project, and Gerry Adams in particular, in the Republic.

Robin Sheeran has more on that on the website, where you can also catch up on last week's texts.

In the studio, we're joined by SDLP founding father Ivan Cooper and political historian Lord Bew to assess the fallout from Fianna Fail's forewarned invasion.

PS - Gerry Adams got lost on his way to our Stormont studio this week.

An aide was overheard complaining that he didn't know where he was supposed to be going. I could make a cheap political joke here, but I won't.

The Politics Show is on BBC One at midday on Sunday.