BILLING a Theresa Villiers statement as significant is akin to describing a One Direction album as ground-breaking, so we really shouldn't have expected much from what the secretary of state said at Westminster yesterday.
Arguably, the media hype ahead of her speech to MPs merely reflected the lack of anything substantive to report about the latest crisis political process.
We knew at the end of last week that both unionist parties were reluctant to commit to the talks too early for fear of being outmanoeuvred by the other, and if they are to be coaxed into the fresh negotiations, it's as likely they'll insist on entering the room simultaneously because neither will jump first.
Sinn Féin was quick to cast the growing furore around the Kevin McGuigan murder as pre-election unionist in-fighting, and while initially this was quite rightly regarded as a republican ruse to deflect blame, its currency appears to be increasing by the day.
Along with welfare and budget matters, how to address concerns about continued paramilitary activity has been a central plank of these reconvened negotiations for the best part of a fortnight, so the DUP and Ulster Unionists were being overly ambitious to expect meaningful commitment from the British government before the parties had even sat around the table.
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Nevertheless, this is what the unionists called for – and then they feigned disappointment when nothing materialised.
Ms Villiers didn't rule anything in nor did she rule anything out, and effectively restated roughly what the British government's stance has been for almost two decades. But rather then batting the ball back into the unionists' court she left it idling in no man's land, where it's uncertain who will next pick it up.
As Haass and Stormont House demonstrated talks don't always deliver an outcome yet they are infinitely preferable to the posturing and faux resignations of recent days.
Sooner or later most, if not all, the parties, along with the two governments, will gather to chart a way out of this impasse.
