down from Parliament - whereas his party colleagues resigned from the Northern Ireland Assembly, because MLAs are simply appointed to fill vacancies, and so do not incur the costs that a by-election does. However, the by-election in Mr McGuinness' Mid Ulster constituency is yet to take place. This may be because Sinn Fin have the funny idea that simply announcing your intention to resign is sufficient for you no longer to be an MP. However, as Gerry Adams found out earlier last year, the traditional route of being appointed to an "office of profit under the Crown" doesn't get bypassed simply because you represent an abstentionist party. Mr Adams' bizarre dispute over whether or not he was still an MP because he refused to recognise having profited from "the English queen", and so on, has not yet come about in the case of Mr McGuinness, but presumably a by-election writ will be issed when he is quite ready to stand down during this parliament. And all of this presents an interesting point: it has been observed over the last few months how members of the Government have made occasional kind references to members of the Democratic Unionist Party. It is thought that this is because the DUP's eight MPs might be exactly what is required to form a new government in the event of a very close hung parliament next time around - a far more palatable coalition for many Conservatives. The DUP are rightly of the view that parties