IT is not the general policy of this column to profile the Great and the Good. We believe that so-called 'ordinary' folk are at least as interesting - and often more so - than the rich, the famous or the powerful.

And the Great and the Good have no particular reason to feel great affection for this week's subject, crusading political journalist and author Paul Routledge, for he is the man largely responsible for ruining Prime Minister Tony Blair's winter holiday in the Seychelles ... by causing two of his leading ministers to resign.

Paul is a proud Tyke by birth, although not a Dalesman, but he and his wife have lived in various parts of Craven for the past 20 years, first in Embsay, then Cononley, Bradley and finally, this past decade or so, Cowling.

The reason: they find the Dales a powerful antidote to the stress, strain and sometimes deception which rules life in Britain's corridors of power.

'We come to Cowling for a bit of straight talking from people you can believe,' says Paul, 55. 'This is a real community with real values which, I am afraid to say, cannot always be said about the Palace of Westminster. Without our life here, I doubt we could have got through the past few years in a state of passable sanity.'

Paul, born in the one-time mining community of Normanton, near Wakefield, is one of those few journalists who is always getting himself into the headlines.

His unauthorised biography of Peter Mandelson, published this month, caused the Christmas resignations of both Mandelson and the Paymaster General, Geoffrey Robinson, over the latter's huge loan to the former which allowed him to buy a house in one of London's posher districts.

The departure of the two ministers has been the political story of the last few days and attention has focused on who tipped off Routledge. But, being the pro he is, Paul will not divulge his sources.

Nevertheless, there are few journalists who can claim the scalps to two of the country's most powerful men. What's more, this was far from being the first time he has hit the headlines and the first involved a brush with the ultimate power figure in the land, none other than the Queen herself.

This was in the 1980s, during the miners' strike, and Paul was a top industrial relations reporter on The Times. With his mining town background, he showed more sympathy than many towards the miners.

Then, one day, the Queen made an official visit to The Times offices, being shown round by the formidable Rupert Murdoch. Her Majesty stopped by Paul's desk and asked him about the strike.

'It's all about one man, isn't it really,' she asked, referring of course to the miners' leader Arthur Scargill.

'No Ma'am,' replied Paul, respectfully but firmly. 'I think it is about tens of thousands of men desperately worried about the future of their families and their communities.'

What Paul did not realise was that a BBC radio reporter was taping the exchange. When it was broadcast that the Queen had become involved in the strike controversy, Buckingham Palace was furious. A few weeks later, Paul was shipped off to Singapore as The Times' South East Asia correspondent, taking with him his wife Lynne and their two young daughters.

Some years later, Paul's attitude to Scargill changed. 'He could have stopped the strike earlier and helped prevent much of the later devastation to Britain's mining communities,' he says now.

So in typical style, he wrote an unauthorised biography of Scargill, which enraged the miners' leader. Soon afterwards, Paul wrote the life of Betty Boothroyd, the Yorkshire lass who found fame as the first ever woman Speaker of the House of Commons, and then another on an old friend of mine, John Hume, the moderate Ulster Nationalist leader who recently shared the Nobel Peace Prize.

Yet more controversy followed two years ago, when he published a biography of Chancellor Gordon Brown, which was interpreted as an attack on Tony Blair and his acolytes, including Peter Mandelson.

And this Christmas, when news of Paul's book on Mandelson leaked, he found himself 'on the receiving end, rather than dishing it out. My phone and bleeper didn't stop going for the whole of the Christmas period as other journalists and TV people tried to interview me.

'It's an experience that I won't forget and gives me a lot of sympathy for ordinary people who, by chance, get caught up in a big media story.'

When he first started his distinguished Fleet Street career, Paul and Lynne lived in the Home Counties but found a tiny cottage in Embsay, where Paul had cycled as a boy when he first fell in love with the Dales.

Now, the situation is reversed: he keeps a small flat in London whilst they spend most of their time in Cowling where, some of the time at least, they can get a bit of peace and quiet.

'The great thing here as that no-one really knows who I am,' says Paul. 'I can go to the pub for a pint and talk about anything under the sun - except politics. When that subject comes up, I try to keep my mouth shut.'

His long suffering wife Lynne, whose daughters are now grown up and married, shakes her head: 'He's two different people, the London Paul and the Cowling Paul.'

And which one does she prefer? 'Guess,' she smiles. No prizes for the correct answer.

Converted for the new archive on 30 June 2000. Some images and formatting may have been lost in the conversion.