Snowmail: Ireland votes no

Last Modified: 13 Jun 2008
By: Alex Thomson

In tonight's show...

Greetings all, Alex Thomson here with a foretaste of tonight's Channel 4 News.

First up to Dublin by the looks of it and once again that tricky old problem of democracy has shoved a stake into the whirring spokes of the Euro machine.

The treaty is dead in the water as Ireland votes no. Or is it? Don't forget the EU has a proven track record of behaving as if democracy is a strictly a la carte selection: get the wrong answer and you simply skip off elsewhere and proceed as if nothing happened.

Well, we shall see on that one. Assorted Irish politicians, so keen to extol the virtues of voting yes a few days ago are now reluctant to come on the programme. More than half of Ireland's 43 constituencies have so far returned a no vote for a whole host of reasons ranging from the belief that the treaty will mean a tax hike, to antagonism towards the current government.

Shell strike: what will be the effects?

The Shell strike: It's a little hard to see how effective it will be, thus far not very effective in wider terms other than hurting Shell itself. There's little real evidence of shortages and a lot of contingency effort has gone in behind the scenes.

Of course we are one day into a four-day stoppage and the critical issue seems to be how many other drivers refuse to cross picket lines. Shell can presumably tough it all out for some time.

The rest of us (in the just-in-time distribution culture we have) might not fair so well if the dispute's effects widen.

Davis saga: The Sun gets involved

David Davis. There's a thing eh? Now he has achieved in 24 hours what David Cameron has been working so very hard to avoid for months, pitching The Sun against the Tory party.

It's quite a feat because Kelvin MacKenzie has thrown his hat into the ring apparently at the behest of Big Rupert himself.

Murdoch obviously thinks the stunt is worth joining so far as his esteemed organ is concerned and, as perhaps the loudest editor in the Sun's history, Kelvin's his man. Will Kelvin finish up saying 'gotcha' or will he be forced to eat his own hamster?

Damning report on forced marriage policy

A critical report by the home affairs select committee has accused the government, in particular the department for children, families and schools, of failing in its duty to protect hundreds, if not thousands, of teenage Asian girls from domestic slavery, brutality and forced marriages.

The report singles out the failure to take responsibility for overseeing the tracking of children who go missing in education. We have an exclusive on this tonight.

Plus the British train that's going nowhere; Dubbya has met the Pope; Colchester honours the paras killed in Afghanistan this week and why we are all aliens from outer space, really.

Do join me at seven on four, all the best, Alex T.