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On Friday, with time pressing, the Good Morning Ulster team didn't push me to call Saturday's UUP leadership election.

No such luck, though, on Radio Foyle where I was cornered into giving a view that, whilst he's fought a strong campaign and proved beyond doubt what a safe pair of hands he has, John McCallister won't be able to overhaul Mike Nesbitt.

Radio Foyle duly promised to play me back my own words in the event of a McCallister victory.

Such a prediction doesn't seem too risky, in line as it is with Friday's Belfast Telegraph survey.

However, I have previous experience when it comes to calling UUP contests wrong.

When the party picked Jim Molyneaux's successor, Radio Five Live demanded a prediction and I opted for John Taylor.

In the light of the former Strangford MP's comments to Gareth Gordon I wondered whether history would have taken a different course if he had beaten David Trimble.

Would the UUP have touched the Good Friday Agreement with it's "40 foot bargepole?"

Would Jeffrey Donaldson and Arlene Foster have remained within the ranks? Was the rise of the DUP inevitable?

Of course it is just a parlour game now, but my predictions for Radio Foyle could turn out to be just as counterfactual in the end.