Night an ex-fencer cut down DUP leader

THE cramped gymnasium on the first floor of Newtownard’s leisure centre had been due to hold a pole-dancing class on Thursday night. Instead it witnessed Northern Ireland’s entire political world turned on its head.

A keep-fit suite, with sports equipment neatly pushed to one side, certainly provided an incongruous setting for the announcement of Stormont First Minister Peter Robinson’s stunning defeat to Naomi Long.

But for an Alliance Party candidate who was a keen fencer at school, it hardly mattered where her most famous duel was won.