There's only one party who could save Theresa May in a hung parliament

A Tory-DUP coalition. Dory. Tup. Conup.

Despite the inability to construct something as beautiful as “ConDem” from the names of the two parties, the Democratic Unionist Party and the Conservative Party teaming up is a real possibility, if the Times/YouGov poll indicating a hung parliament is to be believed.

But assuming it is, and we are faced with a second hung parliament in a decade, who else is willing to link arms with May, Boris and co and march into the Brexit sunset?

The Lib Dems aren't doing that again and they've made that quite clear. Ukip, equally, are out, as they've had their vote eviscerated after May consumed their policies – it would actually be a shock if they had any presence in Parliament whatsoever.

That just leaves us with Labour, SNP, the Green Party and Plaid Cymru, and I won't predict a Tory coalition with any of those parties until a meteorologist puts up her hand to predict a blue moon over the horizon.

Inevitably, that leaves our favourite intrepid adventures from the year 1644, the DUP, as the only even remotely suitable blushing bride for our impatiently foot-tapping groom to wed.

So the question is, in the case of a hung parliament, are the DUP about to become king makers after 8 June? Can the Bible Belt bad boys of Ulster really become one of the most powerful parties in the Commons and what on earth would that mean for the UK?

Sadly, due to the refusal of any of the networks to include the DUP, now the fifth largest party in Parliament, in any of its “UK-wide election debates”, this is a question that the most UK voters have no idea how to answer.

So let me try and be of some assistance.

Firstly, we must ask, would the DUP even be good bedfellows for the Tories?

There are a few reasons why they very much might not be – some of their numbers barely turn up to vote. While there are enthusiastic and engaged parliamentarians amongst them, like Jim Shannon, two of their eight MPs (Gregory Campbell and Ian Paisley Jnr) will not turn up and vote around two-thirds of the time.

Secondly, their voting record is surprisingly anti-austerity. While they might not always be in the chamber, when they are there they consistently vote against Tory welfare cuts.

So would the DUP really work for the Tories? It still seems very likely – there has been a great deal of courting, with the DUP having a champagne reception at the Conservative conference and the Government granting the DUP an Opposition day debate all to themselves.

But most importantly, there is necessity. May would require the DUP if she wanted to continue as Prime Minister in a hung parliament, as there is no one else. Equally, the DUP would have dangled before it the first chance for Northern Irish politicians to hold significant sway in Parliament since 1910. Continued power, and power anew, would be the irresistible forces to bring the two parties together.

The second question is what would the DUP do with this new found Parliamentary sway, and should the electorate be worried?

The DUP, in my opinion, can be quite nasty – but a lot of the harm they can dish out, from homophobic pronouncements, to burning millions of our budget on scandals, frustrating gay equality, attacking the Irish language and pumping anti-poverty money to groups affiliated with gangs, all wrapped up in a snarling sense of superiority and contempt for compromise, is self-contained to Ulster.

As eye-catching as it would be to say the DUP will wreak havoc with the UK Parliamentary agenda, the mainland would be mostly sheltered by the parochial nature of their policy ambitions. They simply do not have the desire or ability to roll back gay rights and abortion rights in the mainland – they are happy to continue to infringe it in our patch of grass.

I would predict they could have two impacts.

Firstly, they are hard-line eurospectics. There is a school of thought that their stance has been slightly shaken as it dawned on them the scale of the problems Northern Ireland faces from leaving the EU, but the party is naturally in favour of a hard Brexit.

The second impact they could have is on British army prosecutions. The DUP are very keen, as are elements of the Tory party, to shutdown investigations and prosecutions of British soldiers, who are facing criminal sanction for atrocities carried out in Northern Ireland and further afield.

Overall, if there is a hung parliament, a DUP-Tory coalition is the only real way May could cling on to that big black door which bears that glinting No 10 by its knocker. This would propel the DUP to a status unheard of in the last century for a Northern Irish party, but that in itself may be enough for it – I severely doubt they would inflict anything worse than the Tory government already plans to.

As damaging as their rule in Northern Ireland can be at times, it's the Tory part of a possible coalition that the UK voter should be most wary of.