NI election uncertainty: An early Christmas present but what happens now?

You can almost feel the collective sigh of relief.

The decision by Northern Ireland Secretary Chris Heaton-Harris to scrap his December election plan is an early Christmas present for Stormont parties.

They dreaded the prospect of going to the polls 10 days before Christmas in an election which was only ever going to deepen the political crisis.

But while welcome, the U-turn by Mr Heaton Harris has damaged his credibility.

It has also raised questions about how it was managed by the Northern Ireland Office.

The early morning statement fulfilled his pledge to provide certainty this week, but means he cannot be questioned about his humiliating climbdown.

We cannot ask why he did not act sooner, knowing an election was pointless.

His insistence that he had a legal obligation to call a poll didn’t cut it.

We have a long history of Northern Ireland secretary of states who dug in before being forced to change the law to remove a deadline.

Just a day ago, his fellow minister Steve Baker told MPs an election was coming and it was just a matter of picking a date.

Not a wise move on the eve of a climb down.

The threat of a December election has been lifted but Mr Heaton-Harris has not removed the option from the table.

To fulfil his legal obligation, he has to call an election by 19 January.

That must happen by 8 December.

But is Mr Heaton-Harris really going to ask politicians to canvass over Christmas?

And if he does, many of the election deadlines for postal and proxy votes would fall on Christmas week.

The intervention of the Prime Minister Rishi Sunak last week to prevented an election being called is also telling.

It exposed a lack of judgement at the Northern Ireland Office on such a big call.

Being overruled by your boss at the eleventh hour is not a good look.

But you also could not rule out it was all part of a strategy to help the secretary of state to get off a hook

As the 6,000 electoral staff are stood down on Friday morning and the politicians put their posters away for now, Mr Heaton-Harris said he will set out his next steps next week.

Backward steps possibly.