Regardless of your political loyalties, you have to admire Arlene Foster. She’s like a woman repapering a room in an old grand house, while overhead the whine of fighter jets and the  thud of explosions rattle the building’s  foundations.

For example? Well, the Irish Times has a story this morning headed ‘Reject bigotry, Foster asks Orange Order members on Scottish visit.’

 This is an odd thing to ask for, since the Orange Order has nothing to do with bigotry or sectarianism. At least that’s what I’ve been told by, among others, the amazing and amusing David McNarry. The  mention of such a notion – at least when I articulate it – sends him into paroxysms of outrage. Yet here is Arlene asking the Orange Order to reject bigotry. Presumably she sees there’s at least a danger that bigotry will creep into its thinking.

Or maybe it’s because in the Scottish town of Cowdenbeath in which she was speaking, anti-Orange Order graffiti appeared in the town overnight. You could say she was  urging the assembled brethren to rise above such squalid bigotry.

If so, she drew a blank. Other speakers on the same platform as Arlene weren’t going in for any of the wishy-washy stuff. One Orangeman made mention of James Connolly, who you’ll remember was executed while strapped to a chair at Kilmainham jail. The Orange speaker declared Connelly  was “a terrorist”, and ended his speech with a rousing “No surrender!” On the same platform, a  clergyman in an Orange sash declared “There are many in this town who are not only enemies of this institution, but who are enemies of Christ.” It looks as if  Orange Order members don’t like their Orange Lite. And sure why would they, with God on their side?

At the same time you can see what Arlene is attempting to do. She has detected a ticking sound coming from two separate quarters. One is from the demographics corner, with every month the unionist majority in the north of Ireland shrinking further; the other is from her own party, where there are there are those who are intent on removing her from her place as leader just as soon as there’s an opportunity. You might say these hardcore DUPers are blood-brothers of the speakers at Cowdenbeath, although of course the Orange Order is tireless in its opposition to blood-spilling or violence of any sort.

At the heart of both Arlene’s difficulties and the difficulties of the Orange Order is that efforts to redress them come too late. It’s too late to recast Arlene as a warm, middle-of-the-road leader of a friendly, reconciliation-seeking party. And it’s equally too late to call on the Orange Order to present a new, gentler face to the world. That was tried ten years ago (Hands up if you remember Diamond Dan?) and died with its boots off.

For the Orange Order to prosper, it can’t go on calling its opponents enemies of Christ, and for unionism to prosper it must persuade middle-of-the-road nationalists that there’s a welcome on the mat. Alas, the Orange Order and the DUP know in their hearts that attempts to do so are doomed. You can’t play a Lambeg drum with a set of toothpicks.