Larry’s Diary, Week Two Hundred And Seventy-Seven

Monday

Good morning and welcome to another week of the ramblings of your favourite cat reporter. A nice morning today again, but I’m delighted to be able to tell you that Legohead had a grotty weekend. He is still moaning about US tariffs, then two of his MPs were banned from entering Israel. Considering what they had previously said about the nation, it’s not surprising. Finally, he’s had another MP arrested for alleged rape, child interference and misconduct in public office. That’s another MP off his huge majority.

I hear Government is going to back down a bit on its EV mandate today. No, they are not going to back down on their crazy 2030 ban on petrol and diesel cars, but they are going to ease rules on matching petrol car sales to EV car sales. Apparently, Legohead will say it is because of the Don’s tariffs, but we all know this is not the real reason. It’s really because EVs are just not selling to the public and there are hundreds of thousands of petrol and diesel cars sitting in fields around the country which can’t be sold unless more EVs are sold or unless the company is willing to pay a huge fine for each petrol car sold.

In Worthing they are installing a Local Heat Network to supply waste steam to many of the council buildings in the town centre, so they get free or cheap heating. The problem is that this has meant digging up the streets to install the necessary pipework, and this is a disaster for the local shops. The Liebore Council has come up with a wonderful idea to help the shops: free parking in a big council town centre multi-storey car park. There is just one snag with this brainwave: it only applies on the first and last Sunday of April, May, June and July. That’s right, it’s only free on 8 days over four months. I doubt the shopkeepers in Worthing town centre are exactly ecstatic.

Following us leaving the EU, as you no doubt remember, they introduced several ‘punishment’ rules against us. One which they said they would introduce, but have so far failed to do, was to introduce an entry and exit system for visitors, somewhat like the online ESTA used by the US. Our response was to introduce the ETA, which has been under trial for some Middle Eastern countries for some time and came into full use at the weekend. The EU has kept putting back the introduction date for their system because many of the members are not ready. Well, it looks like they may have sorted out the software at last and were talking about starting to introduce it in September (but that has already slipped to November) with a full introduction next Spring. We shall see.

The latest NHS brainwave from Wes Streeting is to have community nurses going door to door to check up on people. This is not just sick people like the old and infirm, diabetics and the like, but to offer check-ups for things like blood pressure. I read that the idea is to give nurses blocks of 120 houses. Well, I wonder if this is to be in addition to the work these nurses already do, or will we be hiring hundreds of thousands of new nurses for this enterprise. I understand that there are already 200,000 vacancies in the NHS, so I am a bit bothered about the viability of this scheme.

Sky has for a long time delivered its broadband services via BT’s Openreach, who serve most of the country with its internet services. But Sky is anxious to get its customers to switch to fibre because it has decided to switch its TV customers away from satellite. If you want to purchase Sky today, you will be encouraged to buy either Sky Glass (a TV with a Sky internet decoder built in) or Sky Stream (a stand-alone Sky internet decoder). Sky Q, the satellite decoder, is still for sale but not pushed. But there are loads of potential rural customers that have telephone service over the old copper wires and have too slow a signal for the new internet services. This explains why Sky have partnered with City Fibre, who serve a footprint of 4.4 million rural customers, many of whom are not served by Openreach, to offer Sky TV over the City Fibre network. City Fibre has plans to run past 8 homes in the short term, making it worthwhile for Sky to partner with them.

In Canterbury, there is a problem with the Sturry Road Park and Ride scheme: hardly anyone is using it. When the Council was under Tory control, they closed the scheme as it was losing money. But when the Council fell under joint Liebore, Limp Dump control, it was reintroduced. The site currently loses £28,735 a month, which is almost all of the £32,366 current monthly Council loss. Stagecoach, who operate the car parks, have recognised the problem, saying that sometimes there are only ‘two men and a dog’ on the services. So, they have replaced the double-decker buses used on the service with single-deck ‘Hoppa’ buses and will be using only 2 instead of 3 buses. I somehow doubt this will make the Park and Ride scheme profitable.

Tuesday

Good morning everyone, and it’s another lovely sunny morning, but it is a bit chilly out of the sun. I see 40 Liebore MPs have got together and written a letter to Legohead demanding that everyone is given a digital ID card. The story is that it will stop illegal immigrants coming to this country. I am a bit bothered that it will not be just immigrants but everyone. I wonder if cats and dogs will have to have ID cards.

On Thursday this week, Amazon is scheduled to launch the first 27 satellites of its planned Project Kuiper, which it hopes will rival SpaceX’s Starlink. This is the first of Amazon’s planned 80 launches of 3,200 satellites from which it plans to offer an internet service. Amazon and other companies such as ViaSat, HughesNet, Eutelsat and China’s SpaceSail all want to be able to offer high-speed internet services in remote areas. It is going to be a while before we see if any of these companies can make any money.

David Lammy, the ‘Tottenham Turnip’, says that the reason the UK has only got 10% tariffs is nothing to do with Brexit. I really can’t understand how he has come to that conclusion. The EU has been hit with 20% tariffs, so if we were still in the EU and hadn’t Brexited, we would be paying 10% more in tariffs. The man’s a fool.

At the weekend there was a female pool tournament in Wigan. The sad part is that the final was competed for by two transgender women (men). I find this deplorable; imagine being one of the best female pool players in the country and being knocked out of a women’s tournament by a man. Some sports have decided to not let transgender women participate in women’s sport, for example athletics. They will do a simple cheek swab on ‘women’ athletes to ensure that they really are women. This cat thinks that this is the way to go, as it is blatantly unfair for men in dresses to compete with women.

In February, Erling Haaland signed a new nine-and-a-half-year contract with Manchester City during which he will earn more than most people will earn in nine lifetimes. But Manchester City are not having a good season and are 21 points behind league leaders Liverpool, and on top of that, they are being investigated and have been charged with 112 financial offences by the FA and could be docked points and relegated if found guilty. Now I hear that Manchester City have received two approaches for his transfer this summer, and Haaland is said to be considering his future. He has said his aim is to win the major events in football, and the Champions League is the biggest club competition in Europe. If Manchester City fail to qualify for next year’s competition, I would not be surprised to see Haaland agitating for a move, despite still having nine years of his contract left.

I talked yesterday about the Rampion 2 wind turbine field. Today I learn that it has not yet had a government subsidy secured. The next round of bidding has been delayed to try to reduce government subsidies by looking at changing the terms for Contracts for Difference. At the moment, we pay around £17 billion a year in various green subsidies in carbon and other environmental energy taxes. But what does Mad Ed Millepede want? His clean power system by 2030 is targeting 43–50 GW of offshore wind, 27–29 GW of onshore wind, and 45–47 GW of solar. If you look at what is to be produced, offshore wind delivery must increase by a factor of four compared with the current rate, with onshore wind delivery increasing fivefold, and solar delivery increasing seven times over. Is any of these at all likely to happen?

Jeremy Monga came on the field for Leicester City last night to become the second youngest player to appear in the Premier League. But he had to wear a different football shirt to the rest of the Leicester team. The Leicester home shirt normally has the advert for a gambling company on its front, but because this lad is only young, the FA regulations mean he cannot be seen advertising a gambling organisation. It’s like the young lad who has been playing for Arsenal and because he was under 18 could not change with the rest of the first team. Why do the FA come up with these stupid rules?

Wednesday

Hi folks, it’s yet another beautiful, sunny morning, but it was a bit chilly when I wandered down the garden for my constitutional. While eating my breakfast, Felix, I heard on the radio the story of an ambulance man taking a patient and relatives to a local hospital who crashed and injured the uninjured passengers. But the police found he was high on cocaine. For some unknown reason, the ambulance man was spared jail, but I’m pleased to report he has been sacked.

At the last moment, just 45 minutes before Parliament broke up for its Easter break, they sneaked out an unexpected announcement before an almost empty House of Commons. For ages now, they have been under pressure to have a national public enquiry into rape gangs. Back in January, they announced a compromise: they would have five local judge-led enquiries in some of the worst affected cities. But considering that over 50 cities were known to have been involved, this was hardly enough. So, just before a two-week break, they decided to announce that they are scrapping the five enquiries, but the £5 million put aside will still be available to the five councils to do their own thing. If the government thinks that councils whose officials were part of the problem are going to investigate themselves, they are mad. This is an awful and disgraceful thing that Liebore have done.

Just how incompetent are our snivel serpents? They have been negotiating to take South Western Railways into public ownership in May this year and have agreed what price they are going to pay the owners in compensation for losing their business. But there is one thing they forgot—SWR doesn’t own any trains, they are all leased. So, the costs of nationalisation have gone up by £250 million a year to rent the trains from the leasing companies. How on earth could the snivel serpents of Great British Railways think they could run a railway without trains?

The government is now considering another nationalisation—the takeover of British Steel Scunthorpe, the last steelworks in the UK capable of making virgin steel. The arc furnaces in South Wales can’t make new steel, they only melt scrap and turn out an inferior product suitable for the likes of concrete rebar. But we need new high-quality steel for all sorts of things like gun barrels, nuclear reactors, submarines, railway track, warships, and aircraft. For example, I hear the new nuclear submarines we are building at Barrow are made from French and Belgian steel. Nationalisation isn’t going to make the production of steel any cheaper; it will continue to cost us more than anyone else just so long as we have the highest utility costs in the world. Oh, I nearly forgot—this is urgent, as the Chinese owners of British Steel are threatening to shut down the blast furnaces, and once they go cold, they cost a fortune to restart as the brickwork in them has to be rebuilt.

Good news for English football teams last night when Arsenal beat Real Madrid in the Champions League. Not just good news for Arsenal, who have so far earned £38 million in prize money, and if they get into the semi-finals, then get another £2.1 million. This excludes the money they make from selling tickets, programmes, food and drink, etc. But the win earned the English Premier League extra coefficient points, putting them in an unassailable position at the top of the coefficient league. For the first time, the Champions League will award the two national leagues with the best coefficients an extra entry in next year’s competition. So, that means next year we will have the top five teams in the EPL in the Champions League, meaning a better chance of winning it, and the extra team gets £15.7 million (this year’s prize money) just for qualifying.

I hear the Czech Republic has just sent the last of its Russian-supplied T-72 tanks to Ukraine. The Czechs are getting slightly more modern tanks from other Eastern European countries as an interim solution while they are waiting for refurbished Leopard 2A4 tanks to arrive in 2026. The 42 refurbished tanks are ex-Swiss stock. The Czech Republic is also actively rearming in other areas, including the purchase of Caesar wheeled howitzers, Tatra T-815 military trucks, and are reported to be negotiating to buy 57 new Leopard 2A8 tanks and 19 support vehicles based on the chassis.

The government has proudly announced that Universal Studios are going to build their first European theme park in Bedfordshire. I have seen the plans for several British theme parks announced in recent years only for them to collapse. I hope this one makes it, as the plans call for loads of jobs in the Bedford area. Now here is a thing that Liebore won’t be telling you—the 476-acre ex-brickworks site has been set aside for a theme park for at least 10 years and was acquired by the last Tory government. The site is alongside, and will be served by, the new Wixams railway station that is already under construction. The station is on the Midlands Main Line and will initially be served by four Thameslink trains in each direction an hour. However, the site of the station was moved a little further north so that it can also be served by the East West trains when that route reaches Bedford.

Thursday

Hi everyone, and it’s yet another lovely sunny morning, but a little bit chilly here in London this morning. Because Parliament is closed for three weeks, the Government try to put out a daily press announcement to keep the media happy. Some of these are absolute rubbish, but the rumours doing the rounds today are that Monday’s announcement is going to be that Legohead is going to formally announce the final approval for Sizewell ‘C’ (I thought it had been done twice already) and to give the go-ahead for Small Modular Reactors to be built in the UK. I rather hope this is true and the Rolls-Royce design is approved.

So, America has blinked first in the ‘tariff wars’ with the announcement that the imposition of new higher rate tariffs will be paused for 90 days, but only for countries that have not introduced retaliatory tariffs. Of course, this means almost everyone will be on 10% like us, as we have not retaliated, even if the leader of the Limp Dumps said we should. However, the higher rate tariffs remain in place for the likes of China, who were quick off the mark with retaliatory tariffs. I hear that we have already got an agreement with the US thrashed out, and it is sitting on the Don’s desk waiting for his approval. Let’s hope we can get it signed off in the three months’ pause.

Dacorum Borough Council in Hertfordshire decided not to have any celebrations for the 80th anniversary of VE Day, claiming that it is ‘elitist’. I’m not sure how celebrating the anniversary of winning the Second World War is elitist. It is a way to say thank you to all those people who fought and died in the war to keep us free. They were ordinary people from all walks of life and not in the slightest elitist. The tale seems to have reached Ed Davey, the Limp Dump leader, who has put his foot down and decreed there will be an official parade. I somehow wonder if this council will still be run by the Limp Dumps when the election come.

I could hardly believe the news that has just broken—London has been losing millionaires since the Government changed the rules on Non-Dom status. It doesn’t really come as a big surprise that millionaires have been moving out of the country. If you were rich and could live and spend your money anywhere in the world, would you stay here and pay tax on money you earned elsewhere in the world? Well, the thing that surprised me wasn’t that millionaires were leaving London; it was the sheer number that were going that shocked me. Apparently, 11,300 dollar millionaires have left London in the last 12 months. Robber Reeve projected the Non-Dom tax would bring in £10 billion a year over the next decade. Did she not look at what has happened in other countries that tried a similar tax? The millionaires just upped and left, meaning the projected increase in receipts just didn’t happen.

A convicted cannabis dealer from Greece has been saved from extradition back to Greece because the judge believed his ridiculous story that he only turned to drug dealing because he ran out of money during Covid. Well, Covid was three years ago, so maybe he should have given up being a dealer by now and got a proper job. When are we going to stop being soft on these chancers?

Every spring you might spot bottles of Coke that have yellow caps rather than the traditional red cap. The reason is very simple—the yellow caps show that the contents are kosher. This time of year is important to many of the Jewish faith as they celebrate Passover. Some branches of Judaism avoid certain foods, like all leavened foods such as bread and baked goods, during Passover. But some branches, such as Ashkenazi Jews, are stricter and avoid other things such as legumes, rice, and corn, and this makes standard Coke a no-go because it is sweetened with corn syrup. The yellow caps show that the contents have been sweetened with cane sugar and can therefore be drunk by Jews during Passover. You might not find yellow cap Coke in all shops, but if you can find it, you might prefer the taste of real sugar.

In Africa, scientists have long been looking for the source of Monkeypox, now called Mpox. It has been realised that the disease was being found in people who had no connections with monkeys or humans that had contracted the disease, so the hunt was on for where the virus was hiding. Scientists now think they have located the source, and it’s the fire-footed rope squirrel that is the viral reservoir, and the disease is often passed on by eating squirrel meat—not something that I am likely to do, I much prefer chicken.

Friday

Good morning, happy readers, and what a lovely morning—sunny again and less windy today, so it’s warmer. Did Legohead break election law yesterday? It is my understanding that we are effectively in a period of purdah because of the local elections, where the Government has to separate canvassing and policy announcements. He was out supporting local candidates when he announced an extra 3,600 police to patrol town centres, which is policy. I somehow doubt he will be investigated, let alone charged with breaking election law.

This morning, I have learnt that West Yorkshire Police are turning down white applicants in favour of hiring ethnic minorities. It seems that they have a four-tier acceptance policy rated as Gold, Silver, Bronze and Other. According to a whistle-blower, the Gold Level is for Black and East Asian applicants, while Silver Level is for Asian applicants. If you are ‘white others’—which includes candidates from Irish and Eastern European backgrounds—you are in the Bronze tier. Finally, if you are White British, you come in another unnamed tier. But the WYP has yet another trick to keep out White British—they get only 48 hours to return their application, but in the other tiers they get ‘several months’ to return their application. The WYP website spells out the policy in a subtle way, basically saying if you are White British, don’t bother applying. It says: ‘We are currently accepting applications for the two police constable entry programmes (uniform and detective) from people from our under-represented groups… If you are not from one of these groups, please keep checking this page for future recruitment opportunities.’ I wonder if this policy is legal.

While talking about what is legal, I hear that a South London human rights law firm has been hired to try to get Hamas removed from the list of proscribed terrorist organisations. The lawyers say they will ultimately use the ECHR to press the claim. In a glossy video put out by the law firm, they clearly state, ‘We have been hired by Hamas.’ Now, what I want to know is the legality of being paid to represent a terrorist organisation. If supporting them is considered illegal, why isn’t being paid to work for them illegal? Of course, even if the lawyers got as far as the ECHR, what is to stop us ignoring any ruling? Other countries do it all the time.

The NHS is to wipe 300,000 off its operating waiting list in one stroke of the pen. How are they managing this? Well, they have given a number of reasons, all of which are disgraceful. They include thousands who have died while waiting, those who have just given up and begged, borrowed or dipped into their savings to go private. But perhaps the worst case is those whose condition has now got so bad it would be pointless to operate. Just how bad is NHS record-keeping that those 300,000 were still on the waiting lists anyway?

I had to chuckle this morning when I heard about the woman whose GP referred her to a specialist for a consultation. After waiting for several months, she finally got a telephone consultation. After a couple of minutes, the consultant cut the conversation short, saying he would call again when he had secured an interpreter. What strange language did this woman speak? Was it Arabic, Greek, Afrikaans or maybe Chinese? No, she was speaking English and had been born and raised in Reading to English parents and had spoken English all her life. Is this just another excuse to bring down the waiting list?

I understand that a Scottishland SMP says there is something fishy about our growing imports of frozen fish from China. He claims that it is actually Russian fish avoiding the trade sanctions we have plaiced on Russia. The fish is caught by Russia and processed there before being frozen and sold to China, who repackage it before shipping it to us. So, that nice fillet of cod or haddock you got in your local chippy might have travelled halfway round the world and back before landing up on your table. As the fish comes from Red China, will we be getting red snapper? I understand they are going to mullet over.

Babcock International have announced they have been awarded a £65 million contract to upgrade the 6 x Type 31 frigates they are manufacturing. So, what is the upgrade the ships are getting? Babcock say it is for a Capability Insertion Period and will introduce a series of capability upgrades to the vessels, enhancing their operational effectiveness beyond the baseline design and build specification. Well, that’s as clear as mud, and that word salad tells the taxpayer absolutely nothing. I can only think it is that they are getting some top-secret upgrade, and they don’t want the Russians and Chinese finding out too easily. I rather hope it is DragonFire lasers.

Saturday

Good morning everyone, and it looks like the last of the good weather for a while, with rain forecast for tomorrow. But at least the wind has changed around, and it feels much warmer. I understand that the Government has called for an emergency Saturday sitting of Parliament morning. It is unusual for two reasons: Parliament is closed for Easter, and it is a weekend sitting. My understanding is that the Government wants to talk about the British Steel Scunthorpe Steelworks, which the Chinese owners want to close. I will be surprised if they have not decided to nationalise it.

The Rich Boy’s resignation honours list is out, and I must say I am not really surprised at the political announcements. Gove is to become a Lord, while Hunt and Cleverly both get a knighthood. There is one honour I heartily approve of though, and that is making Jimmy Anderson a knight. He is probably the greatest fast bowler I have ever seen and performed magnificently for England before he retired last summer.

This week’s cat story is about Red, a stray who roamed Liverpool’s Anfield Stadium and lived on food dropped by supporters. I’m not sure I’d like to live off bits of cold meat pie and old hot dogs—I much prefer my Felix. Liverpool organised for the local Cats Protection to catch Red, and he has now been rehoused with a family. I understand he took a couple of weeks to settle down, but is now happy to get guaranteed meals every day. Oh, I can also tell you he has a new name. He is now called Tommy, after that old Liverpool hero Tommy Smith.

Now, a little success story from Northumberland. In December, the railway line between Newcastle and Ashington was reopened 60 years after it was closed by the Beeching cuts, for the not very large cost of £298 million. So far, it only calls at three stations, but another three are being constructed and are all due to open this year. It was predicted that between opening and Easter, 50,000 people would use the service, making the two-car train service financially viable. Instead, it now looks like 250,000 will have used the service by Easter, leaving the line with a problem. It seems that at peak times, and particularly when Newcastle plays at home, the trains get very full and sometimes are near capacity. It looks like the operator is going to have to add additional capacity in the form of longer trains. Additional services are more difficult, as they have to be accommodated in Newcastle station and timetables are produced years in advance. Still, this is a nice problem to have.

I told you a while ago about burger chain Carl Jr going to open its first UK outlet. Well, it is now open in Cardiff, and I understand that to the delight of the franchisees, they have been experiencing long queues with 200 transactions an hour. This seems to have led the franchisees to announce their intention to open up to another 100 outlets across the UK in the next four years. You will need to keep an eye out for one opening near you. I wonder if their chicken burger is any good.

With the Trump tariffs on imports, I learn that the big American-owned cruise lines have been asking questions about their new ships. The cruise ships are all built in Europe, in shipyards in Italy, France, Germany and Finland. With no US domestic cruise ship building industry, the likes of Carnival and Royal Caribbean have little choice but to build ships in Europe. But ships are made of steel, and the Don has slapped a 25% tariff on steel and steel products. The cruise lines are wondering how this is going to affect the new ships they have on order. Perhaps the answer would be to not bring them into US ports, but with them hugely reliant on US passengers, this is not really practical. Could the US shipbuilder branch out into cruise ships? Possibly, but in Europe there is a massive infrastructure behind the yards that build the engines, cabin modules, fixtures and fittings—none of which exists in the US. In addition, the European countries where the yards are located offer financing for the ships with cheap money over 10 or 12 years. Would the US match this? Carnival and Royal Caribbean have a lot to think about.

I read that one major effect of the Trump tariffs in the US is that the cost of their beloved cup of coffee has gone up. The Americans spend $100 billion a year on coffee, and all the beans are imported because they can’t be grown in the USA—the climate just isn’t suitable. In the US, most coffee comes from the Caribbean or South America, where the countries are all currently subject to an additional 10% tariff. So, of course, the cost of a cup of Joe has also gone up by a minimum of 10%. I wonder how long it will be before the customers complain and the sales of coffee fall.

I’m done again, and it is still beautifully sunny and warm, so once again I am off to snooze on the windowsill this afternoon. As I mentioned earlier, I hear that the weather is on the change, and it might rain overnight. Then we might get a couple of wet days during the next week. Chat to you all next week.
 

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