DURING the BBC General Election Leaders’ debate Theresa May told a nurse who hadn’t had a pay rise for eight years “there isn’t a magic money tree that we can shake that suddenly provides for everything that people want.”

Unless, of course, you are the DUP. 

They must be using some powerful fertilizer in the Number 10 garden because less than a month since her Question Time appearance the PM has managed to shake down the £1.5 billion required to prop up her weakened government following weeks of wrangling. 

Imagine what that kind of cash could do for the hospitals, schools and roads in our region. 

The people of Northern Ireland will soon get a chance to see its impact on their infrastructure after Mrs May agreed to hand over an eyewatering sum and devolve tax powers to Ulster. It makes the £15m-a-year regeneration cash promised to the recently-elected Tees Valley mayor look like small change.

The fact that the Government doesn’t spend more to improve roads or hospitals in the North-East, or doesn’t pay nurses properly, has nothing to do with trees possessing mystical powers. It is because Mrs May and her ministers make a choice not to. 

David Cameron was no stranger to generating money out of thin air when he saw fit. He got the Bank of England to create £453bn to buy debt from the private sector using the quantitative easing mechanism. Mr Cameron insisted it was in the national interest.

Mrs May echoed that sentiment as she appeared stony faced beside a bunch of beaming Ulster Unionist MPs. This was another nail in the coffin of the PM who staked her political life on an ability to negotiate deals that would benefit the country.

Her self-serving pay-off to the DUP is a shocking waste of taxpayers' money which may ultimately cost her way more than £1.5bn.