IRELAND SAYS NO! Well now - what a turn up. The Irish have refused to be led by the nose and follow the advice of all the main political parties, big business and trade unions, and said NO to the Lisbon Treaty. The BBC coverage on this should be most interesting - just listen to the tonality of it (as the late unlamented Hillhunt would have suggested). I was reading Mark Mardell's take on it here which is lamentable in terms of asking the hard questions about the serial failure of the Eurocrats to seLl their lousy Constitution to the people of Europe. Instead Mark seems more interested in considering how a way can be found to get around this awkward business of democracy. I predict the BBC will be in mourning with grim faced news-readers breaking the news but they will try to gain encouragement from Mr Broon's claim that he plans to go ahead and force it through Parliament.