Leading article: The politics of progress

The British government has repeatedly made dire threats against Northern Ireland's politicians, warning that they and their constituents faced political, and indeed financial, ruin unless they made a deal by the deadline. No government will be formed today, as the Reverend Ian Paisley made clear at the weekend, yet the atmosphere in Belfast is not one of crisis. Things have not yet been sorted out completely, but the air contains many hopeful elements.

London wanted Mr Paisley to stand up in the Assembly today and accept the office of First Minister, with Sinn Fein's Martin McGuinness confirmed as his deputy. Mr Paisley will not do that. But this is not a no; rather, it is a not yet. He will go into government with Sinn Fein - not immediately, but in May. Furthermore, he has the overwhelming support of his Democratic Unionist party to do so - Saturday's meeting of the party executive approved the move by 102 votes to 10.

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In other words, Northern Ireland's most conservative party has just decided to do the most radical thing in its history. Furthermore, it has done so in the most wholehearted way. Apart from a few individuals, practically everyone is on board, which is something of a miracle for a party whose slogan in one election was "Smash Sinn Fein".

There had been talk of division in the ranks, but in the end this evaporated. Mr Paisley stalked out of the meeting with a broad grin on his face. The Northern Ireland Secretary, Peter Hain, also wore a grin, though a slightly less wide one, as he stuck to the official line that failure to form an administration today would lead to the dissolution of the Assembly.

The Government may feel some embarrassment that yet another deadline has been crashed. Sinn Fein, for its part, will be disgruntled that it has been engineered by a flexing of the Paisley muscles. Yet the republicans have few grounds for real complaint about a six-week delay, since it took the IRA more than a decade to progress from its first ceasefire to the decommissioning of its weapons.

Both London and the republicans will therefore keep their eyes fixed on the bigger picture, which is the promise of power-sharing in May. The intervening period may be messy, and the Assembly may indeed be closed down for a time. But this will be a temporary measure, for the authorities will do nothing irrevocable.

All this is in line with the recent characteristics of the Irish peace process. Advances come in small increments; things always take longer than expected, but somehow or other it keeps moving on. Northern Ireland works at a political pace of its own: six weeks is a short time in its politics.