The intention in Moscow was to use that period to achieve a progressive convergence with the EU.
Outsiders will find little to distinguish between the two parties now promising a progressive alternative to the Conservatives.
A successful progressive movement must now be Citizens Advice bureau, housing association, scout troop, trade union, credit union, bingo hall, food bank, careworker, football club and evangelical church, rolled into one.
The DUP, UUP, Traditional Unionist Voice, the Ulster Volunteer Force-aligned Progressive Unionist party and the Ulster Defence Association-linked Ulster Political Research Group said it showed that "the commission members place no value on a relationship with unionism and have treated our advice with contempt".
Further, the junior partner party in the present coalition, the Progressive Democrats, only hold three seats, and yet all are ministers.
At 11.30pm Democratic Unionists had 20 seats, Sinn Féin 13, Ulster Unionists 12, SDLP three, Progressive Unionists one, Alliance party one, and Dr Kieran Deeny, an independent campaigning to keep acute hospital services in Omagh, topped the poll in West Tyrone.
On the London Assembly too, the so-called "progressive coalition" has also done most of the running, with many Conservative members still struggling to find a voice.
In the year since the resignation of Progressive Unionist party leader Dawn Purvis, it has become depressingly clear among acute observers of Belfast's loyalist communities that the loyalist paramilitary UVF has been purposefully ratcheting up tensions among its youthful foot soldiers to show some muscle.
Furthermore (and Dacre would have been proud of this line), "the ABC has an endless list of progressive journalists and hosts sharing their perspectives and an absence of hosts or programmers who are mainstream or, heaven forbid, conservative".
Gordon Brown has added his heavyweight credentials to the 'No' campaign, warning that a Scotland dominated by the SNP will not necessarily be more progressive than the status quo.
Calls for the implementation of a so-called Trayvon's Law, drafted by the historic National Association for the Advancement of Colored People and supported by the thousands of young protesters, have also fallen flat in states around the country.
