Martin McGuinness and the Rev Ian Paisley have not exchanged an angry word in the eight months they have led the Stormont Executive, the Sinn Fein MP claimed today.
As the power-sharing government prepared to mark six months in office tomorrow, the Stormont Deputy First Minister said he enjoyed a cordial and civilised working relationship with the Democratic Unionist leader which had confounded their critics.
And he also accused members of the nationalist SDLP and Ulster Unionists of resenting the fact that the DUP-Sinn Fein-led government was running more smoothly than when they were the two largest parties.
"I've always believed throughout the course of my political life that Ian Paisley was a very bitter, very harsh person and was really only interested in his political opinion holding sway," the Sinn Fein MP said.
"I am not offering up what he thought about me. Obviously he probably had as poor an opinion of me as I had of him. "But this year changed everything. There is a transformed political situation and he and I are now working together.
"We have been discussing important issues together and are taking important decisions together and we are doing so in a very cordial and civilised atmosphere.
"In that situation it is more than likely that your opinion will change of someone and I certainly, when I meet Ian Paisley, don't see the harsh, bitter Ian Paisley that I saw prior to March 26 this year.
"I see someone who is civilised in his dealings with me, cordial in his dealings with me, whilst maintaining his own political position. I know where he is coming from and he knows where I am coming from - his allegiances to what he describes as the United Kingdom, my allegiances to Ireland."