Britain prepares for Saudi state visit

Last Modified: 29 Oct 2007
By: Newsroom blogger

Inside the morning meeting...

The big event of the day will be the state visit to Britain of King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia.

There should be some interesting picture - the King and his essential travelling kit will be delivered to Heathrow by a small fleet of jumbo jets.

There will be interviews aplenty, but there is no obvious top line. The story about the Saudis passing crucial evidence about the 7/7 bombers, which Britain ignored, doesn't seem to stand up.

So it could be a chance to look a bit closer at this crucial relationship. Britain and the West gain a lot from Saudi - oil, and enthusiastic customer for our weapons, and possibly a key ally in the war on terror.

But it's essentially a medieval monarchy, corrupt and deeply entrenched in the abuse of human rights. And some say that they do more to help terrorists than hinder them.

In Argentina, the former first lady Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner looks almost certain to win the presidential election. A good omen for another first lady turned presidential contender, Hillary Clinton?

The story about supposed 'orphans' from Chad being kidnapped from their homes continues to rumble on - but there may not be enough of a line to make it into today's programme.

Closer to home, there's another TV fakery scandal breaking, involving a TV nanny, Claire Verity, who has allegedly made up some of the references on her CV. She denies the claims, but Channel 4, which commissioned the Bringing Up Baby programme, are investigating today.

The government is announcing some new measures on child poverty today. It was the subject of some of Labour's most ambitious targets, but they've been slipping up and some of the impressive progress of the early Blair years has gone (slightly) into reverse.

The new line today will apparently be that the non-financial measures have a vital role in checking poverty. Handy, since there's no new money around in any case.

It will be very interesting to hear what the Tories have to say about this. Will they promise to scrap Labour's expensive (but effective) tax credits for parents? Or will they promise to keep them?

Gap has found it self in trouble over new evidence that child workers have been employed in its Asian factories - a PR disaster for a company which tries to promote an ethical image. They say they're 'investigating', but the finger of blame seems to point to a subcontractor of one of Gap's main contractors.

The Sunday tabloids where full of a sizzling royal blackmail story today. We can't name the victim, though we can detail the allegations - coke and gay sex with an aide - but the victim doesn't appear in the video.

Clearly we won't be reporting this with the same zeal as the tabs, but it's a fascinating story with interesting legal and media ramifications.