The Northern Echo | Peter Mullen

Why the Queen is a class act

Tue, 07 Feb 2012 16:22:12 +0000

FEBRUARY 6, 1952. The grimy suburb of Armley, Leeds. A bilious yellow sky and damp that chilled your innards. We were all called out of class and lined up in the yard. The headmaster announced with tremulous solemnity that King George VI was dead.

Germany's Fourth Reich plan

Tue, 31 Jan 2012 14:47:40 +0000

I RETURN to a question I asked in this column some months ago: “Is it possible that control of Europe which Germany nearly achieved three times by force, under Bismarck in 1870, the Kaiser in 1914 and under Hitler in 1939, might now be achieved by economic means under Angela Merkel?”

The Queen deserves a royal yacht

Tue, 24 Jan 2012 12:05:20 +0000

OF course the nation should provide the Queen with a new Royal Yacht. It was to our shame that Britannia was ever scrapped.

Spare us the agony of America

Tue, 10 Jan 2012 14:22:54 +0000

I BECAME very excited last week. The hysterical woman presenter on Radio Four announced a tortoise race. I adore tortoises and the classic story about the contest with the hare is Aesop’s best fable.

What does 2012 hold in store?

Tue, 03 Jan 2012 15:46:35 +0000

JANUARY is rightly named after the two-faced Roman god Janus. He looks both back and forward.

A Dickens Christmas in London

Tue, 27 Dec 2011 13:09:30 +0000

I AM just easing myself into Christmas.

The true spirit of Christmas

Tue, 20 Dec 2011 14:10:43 +0000

FUNNY how things from way back just pop into your head. As I peered through the curtains at a sodden dawn, I recalled an incident in the Co-op car park in Wetherby 30 years ago.

Let’s get right out of Europe

Tue, 13 Dec 2011 16:16:41 +0000

THE best headline about the Euro-fiasco was in one of the national papers: “Europe leaves Britain.”

This gaudy celebrity sideshow

Tue, 29 Nov 2011 14:28:08 +0000

THERE is something unsettling about the daily, gaudy procession of celebs giving evidence to the Leveson inquiry.

The Arab Spring has failed us

Tue, 22 Nov 2011 14:42:44 +0000

THERE is going to be a war in the Middle East. I don’t know exactly where it will start, it could break out at any one of half a dozen or more flashpoints, or exactly when: but it will be soon.