With humble pie off the menu, the deal was done

THE coffee shop opposite Hillsborough castle is called Humble Pie – but for once, Sinn Féin and the DUP did not try to force each other to eat such a dish during their marathon negotiations.

Though the deal to bring policing and justice powers back to the North for the first time since direct rule was imposed in 1972 marks the fulfilment of the last major plank of the Good Friday Agreement, DUP leader Peter Robinson still could not bring himself to shake on it. Power-sharing may have been saved, but decades of distrust still linger as Mr Robinson dismissed calls for a symbolic handshake with Sinn Féin’s Martin McGuinness as a “stunt”.

Mr Robinson knew such a sight would intensify the shouts of “sell-out” coming from the extreme flank of loyalism which his party so recently occupied and is now home to the Traditional Unionist Voice (TUV).