The belated extension of the deadline to restore Stormont points to a Secretary of State playing for time.
Chris Heaton-Harris could have introduced emergency Westminster legislation long before October 28 to push back his legal requirement to call an election.
But his bullish stand-off with the DUP breached the deadline, making Stormont's deadlock even worse than before by forcing caretaker ministers from office.
Read more: Deadline for restoring Stormont to be extended until January
After U-turning on his pledge to immediately call an election, the Northern Ireland secretary is now seeking to salvage his credibility from the chaos he has compounded.
Plans to cut MLA pay will likely be popular with the public, with Mr Heaton-Harris saying people are "frustrated" that MLAs are still receiving their full £51,500 annual salary.
But the move will do nothing to revive Stormont. The last time MLA wages were docked in 2018 during a power-sharing collapse, it took more than a year for the institutions to be restored.
Former DUP leader Edwin Poots said cutting salaries would have "no influence whatsoever" on his party's stance on blocking Stormont until changes are made to Brexit's Northern Ireland Protocol.
Reports suggest the Secretary of State could cut MLA pay by 27%, but there was no detail in his statement to MPs - and no clarity on when the measure will be introduced.
It leaves open the prospect of this threat being dragged out. It took nearly two years for MLA pay to be reduced after Stormont collapsed in 2017 in the wake of the RHI scandal.
Mr Heaton-Harris' plan to extend the period for forming an Executive pushes back the 12-week timeframe within which he would be required to call an election.
The period would instead begin on December 8 - meaning a poll would have to be held by March 2 - or six weeks later on January 19, meaning an election would take place by April 13 at the latest.
But by that stage Northern Ireland would be just weeks away from May's local government elections, at which point calls would inevitably grow louder to further delay an Assembly poll.
After the Secretary of State's embarrassing climbdown, there is no longer any expectation that future deadlines are set in stone.
Mr Heaton-Harris just weeks ago insisted talks between the UK and European Union to resolve the protocol impasse would "continue no matter what" during an election period.
But now the Northern Ireland secretary says extending the deadline "aims to create the time and space needed" for negotiations between London and Brussels.
For someone who once insisted that "elections always help", Mr Heaton-Harris is doing his best to keep his options open.
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