Paisley to avoid symbolic parting handshake

Ian Paisley will leave office without shaking the hand of his partner in government Martin McGuinness, the 82-year old Democratic Unionist leader revealed today.

Despite a clamour for the symbolic gesture as the North Antrim MP prepares to leave the political front line, he said his relationship with the Sinn Féin deputy leader and former IRA man would remain strictly professional to the last.