Larry’s Diary, Week Three Hundred And One

Monday

Good morning, my friends. I’m delighted it was a bit warmer and dry this morning when the man let me out of the back door. Legohead is back from Chequers and still not happy. I listened to a couple of SPADs discussing his moods, and they said he is not happy being PM, he feels out of his depth. Well, if he were to ask me, I would tell him he is out of his depth and 80% of the country agrees. They seemed to think that, barring a sudden disaster, he would hang on until the council elections in May, in the faint hope that Liebore don’t do as badly as expected.

The latest fuss over the collapse of the China spying trial seems to have come about because the government refuses to call China an enemy. The offence occurred before the present Security Act was passed, and under the previous Act China was not listed as an enemy, so passing secrets to them wasn’t an offence. Under the new Act, passing secrets to any foreign intelligence organisation is considered an offence. So, we let two spies go free because the government refused to stand in court and call the Chinese our enemy. They are spineless.

I read that the Israeli version of the F-35A is such an improvement over the standard version that everyone else flies, that Lockheed Martin would like to incorporate some of the changes into the base model. Before they bought the F-35, the Israelis asked for modifications to be made to the plane to bring it up to their desired standard. The US Government at first refused, but later agreed that Israel could modify them when the Israelis paid to become a top-tier contributor to the F-35 programme. Well, what have the Israelis done? Firstly, they have more than doubled the aircraft’s range so that it can hit targets in Iran without needing air-to-air refuelling. They have developed huge drop tanks, but as the pylons they are suspended from would disrupt the plane’s invisibility, the pylons are dropped as well. On top of that, they have built conformal fuel tanks shaped to the plane’s body and covered in radar-absorbing material, so the plane remains invisible. Then they replaced the US radar with one of their own, which is a huge improvement in capability and range. Finally, they have replaced the ECM system with an Israeli one. It is capable of totally jamming the Iranians’ Russian-supplied S-300, S-400, and S-500 anti-aircraft missiles, relied on by them for air defence. To show just how effective these modifications are, the Israelis have used them over Beirut and Tehran and not lost a single plane.

More pro-Palestinian demonstrations on the streets of Britain over the weekend. The mob was out with their face masks, antisemitic chants and banners. Once again, loads of arrests, but no condemnation from Legohead or Sad Dick. Why not, when they were both happy to speak out over the Raise the Colours march? Then Phil Neville comes out and says all the problems are caused by ‘middle-aged white men’. Why is that not racist? If he had talked about ‘middle-aged black men’ the left would have been up in arms.

Three more national opinion polls were published over the weekend, and all three have Reform leading by 10% or more over Liebore. The one from JL Partners was one of those mega polls that are reckoned to be more accurate as they interview three times as many voters as a standard poll. Well, this one polled over 6,000 voters and was the one with the lowest (10%) lead. But what I found intriguing was that, for the first time, a poll had Farage ahead of Legohead for PM.

The Israelis have announced the deportation of another 171 people from the Doom Goblin’s flotilla, including the Doom Goblin herself. They are being sent to Greece and Slovakia, where they will join 137 deported to Turkey on Sunday and 39 to Spain on Saturday. As there were 470 arrested on the 40 assorted small boats, I guess there are more deportations to come. I’m a little surprised that the Doom Goblin was let go so quickly, as she is a repeat offender. I fully expected them to make an example of her, but clearly they were in a hurry to get rid of the brat.

It’s the Tories’ conference in Manchester today, and they have been listening to the Reform Party’s policies. They have announced that a Tory government would leave the ECHR and repeal the Climate Act, something they introduced. I watched a bit of Politics Live and wasn’t in the least surprised to see they were sticking to their usual format of two lefties and a Tory. They did a similar thing yesterday on Coonsburger with lefties outnumbering the right. The previous week it was all Liebore when their conference was on. But the BBC is unbiased, or so we are told.

Yet another French Prime Minister has resigned this morning. This one only lasted a month and had only started naming his cabinet at the weekend. It seems that his problem is that his party simply doesn’t have a majority, in fact no one has a majority. So, the only way a government can survive is to form a coalition with one or more others. The question is what Macaroon will do now. Will he try to appoint a new PM, or will he call another general election? That is a big risk, as the last one was won by Marine Le Pen.

Tuesday

Good morning everyone. Well, it’s very gloomy this morning, and the sky was still dark when I went out. I see today is the second anniversary of the October 7th attack on Israel, and the Islamists are planning celebrations all over the U.K. What a horrendous prospect, celebrating murder, rape and kidnapping. This cat says anyone out there celebrating should be arrested.

The first delivery of the new Boeing aircraft, the 777X, has been postponed once again. The plane is already years late, having originally been planned to enter service in 2019. The first delivery is now scheduled for mid-2027, and this latest delay alone is expected to cost Boeing at least $2.5 billion more. I suspect that some of the customers who have placed orders for over 550 of the 3 versions being offered are wishing they had never heard of the 777X.

I read that the Queen Elizabeth is to sail a series of cruises out of Miami to the Caribbean this winter. It is the first time the QE has home ported in Florida. I wonder how the Yanks who cruise out of Miami will get on with a posh ship like the QE, which is divided by class. The wealthy Yanks who use it to cross the Atlantic know how to behave on board, like wearing a jacket or blazer in the main dining room. I really can’t see the trailer trash enjoying the facilities of the ship. It is far too upmarket for them.

Do you remember me telling you about the wet wipe island in the Thames? Well, now I bring you the Feltham Fatberg. Thames Water workers have just spent a month removing 100 tonnes of fat and grease from a sewer 10 metres under Feltham in Middlesex. The fat was taken underground to a large manhole, lifted to a skip and then dumped in a landfill. I would hate to do a job like that. Mind you, I am too small. The water in the sewer would be over my head, and you know I hate getting my fur wet.

So, the Ginger Growler has been at it again, spending taxpayers’ money as if it were her own. This time, reports in the media say that not only did she use her bodyguards to help her move into her flat in Hove, but that she had them ferrying her boyfriend around in her government BMW. I know she is not particularly bright, the continuous stream of her actions proves it, but you must wonder why her security detail agreed to help her. Are they as brainless as her?

Yet another opinion poll out this morning. This one gives Reform a 15% lead over Liebore, with Liebore down to just 20%. Translated into seats, it would give Reform 438 seats, which is even more than Liebore currently hold. But it is the approval rating for the party leaders that is amazing. It is rare for party leaders to be in positive numbers, but Legohead has hit an all-time low, falling to -40, while Farage is on -3 and Bad Enoch on -16. The poll was taken after the Reform and Liebore conferences, but before the Tory one, which seems to be sparsely attended.

I hear that there has been a rush of people cancelling their Sky TV subscriptions since the infamous Gary Neville outburst. But many of these people are still in contract and would normally be held to keep paying until the contract finished. However, I hear that so many are doing this that Sky have decided just to let anyone cancel who says they are doing so because of Neville. The word I hear is that they are afraid someone will take them to court and set a legal precedent. I wonder if Sky bigwigs have got the calculators out to work out if it would be cheaper to let customers go or to sack Neville.

Wednesday

Hi folks, there is a tiny bit of watery sun coming through the cloud this morning, but it’s not cold. It’s the last day of the Tory Conference, with the showpiece leader’s speech late this morning. With Legohead going off to India on a ‘Trade Mission’, they will almost certainly be watching in the office, so I might pop in for a good laugh.

The Met pigs have been bigging themselves up for smashing a smuggling gang. But it’s not a gang of people smugglers bringing illegal immigrants in, it is a gang of phone smugglers sending stolen phones to Hong Kong for onward shipment into mainland China. You may think that blocking your phone, if it is stolen, renders it useless, but I learn that it can still be used in China. Apparently, western smartphones are in great demand on the Chinese black market because they can access the internet, which is not allowed on smartphones sold over the counter in China. But this is where it gets interesting. A lady had her iPhone snatched in London and used its inbuilt tracker to locate it in a warehouse near Heathrow. The ex-police warehouse security man tracked the signal to a box labelled “Phone Batteries” that was due to go to Hong Kong. There were 1,000 stolen smartphones in the shipment. That is just four days’ phones reported stolen on the streets of London. Rather than go to the police, they went to the Daily Mail, who investigated what turned out to be organised crime shipping thousands of phones to China. The Mail gave the police a complete investigation with names and addresses, and the Met deemed for once to act and carried out early morning raids at over 30 addresses and claimed all the glory. Oh, I nearly forgot, the gang was headed by two Afghans.

Another poll out yesterday showed that over 66% of Tories want a pact with Reform before the local elections. I can’t see it happening for a couple of reasons. Reform have absolutely nothing to gain. As things are now, they stand to win bigly at the May elections, and to join forces with the Tories would mean standing down in some seats and handing them to the Tories. I can’t see this happening. Farage has experience of this at a previous general election and being screwed over. The only way I can see a pact happening is if, after a general election, Reform is a few seats short of a majority.

Next, a story reaches me from the Spanish enclave of Ceuta on the Mediterranean coast of Africa. The enclave is separated from Morocco by a 32-foot wire mesh fence topped with razor wire, but yesterday it didn’t stop a paraglider crossing it and landing in what is technically Spain. Spain is used to illegal immigrants breaking into Ceuta by climbing the fence or swimming from Morocco, but this was the first recorded to have paraglided in. However, the Spanish police rushed to the area where reports said he had landed, but the man has disappeared, leaving behind his paraglider. Spain organises regular transfers of immigrants from Ceuta to the mainland to empty out its detention facility, as it is only small. Approximately 1,200 immigrants break into Ceuta every month.

Yesterday morning another batch of Tory councillors jumped ship and joined Reform. Since Reform gained 677 seats in the May local election, they have gained another 84 in defections and by-elections. Yesterday’s announcement was of another batch of 22 defections from the Tories to Reform from councils all over the country. I wonder how many more will jump before the local elections next May.

In Sussex, Liebore’s plans to build council houses have suffered a setback. The house builder, Boutique Modern, has filed for administration in the middle of building 16 houses in Lancing and another 16 in Hastings. The councils have both said it is too early to say what they are going to do, but I can’t see the projects being abandoned. I expect the councils will appoint builders to finish the projects, but I bet that will put the costs up.

For some time now, Arsenal has been looking into increasing capacity at the Emirates Stadium. When it opened 20 years ago, with just over a 60,000 capacity, it was the second biggest ground in the Premier League. But in those years it has slipped down the size rankings, and various plans have been investigated to enlarge it. I hear that the council are not happy with the stadium footprint being changed, as the ground is squeezed in between two railway lines. So, I hear the current favourite idea is to increase the angle of slope of the seats and to raise the roof. That way, they could increase capacity to over 75,000. I wonder if they would have to move out while the work is done.

Thursday

Hello folks, well I am delighted to tell you that it is quite sunny in Downing Street this morning, both weather-wise and lack of Legohead-wise. Mind you, I have been laughing at his latest self-promoting video. It’s him and Gary Neville walking and talking in the Cotswolds. Well, I say walking and talking, but apparently they can’t do both at the same time as they stop every time they talk. It reminds me of Gerald Ford who was said to be so stupid that he couldn’t walk and chew gum at the same time.

This Chinese spy case is getting more interesting. The current Director of Public Prosecutions is blaming the government for collapsing the trial by refusing to supply a statement to the court declaring China an enemy. Apparently, the last government had promised to provide just that. I know you can’t bind a future government to your policy, but this is a matter of national security. The current Liebore government seems to be bending over backwards to get more trade with China and appease them.

A new More in Common poll out yesterday morning has Reform on 33%, Liebore on 20%, and the Tories on 19%. It is no surprise that the poll has miles in the lead, but that the Tories are just 1% behind Liebore is more interesting. I know More in Common has continually had the Tories on a higher standing than other polls, but many others have shown the Tories and Reform creeping up slightly over the past few weeks while Liebore have been falling a little. Roll on the May local elections.

It seems our ‘good friends’ in the EU are threatening to collapse what is left of our steel industry by placing 50% tariffs on us. If I were in the government, I would say if you do, you can wave goodbye to us sending them the £9.2 billion we have agreed to pay them in settlement for leaving the EU. Then we can revoke the fishing agreement. But I would start by slapping a 50% tariff on the steel they sell to us, which by the way is double what we export.

I managed to watch Bad Enoch’s speech, and I was quite impressed. She is certainly a much better public speaker than Legohead. But it was what she said, not how she said it, that I found interesting. She seems to have tried to pinch all the Reform ideas. Things like leaving the ECHR and scrapping the Net Zero policy. But the one announcement that could have the largest impact is the dropping of Stamp Duty for home buyers. The OBR say that Stamp Duty will bring in £15 billion this year, so either equal savings or income will have to be found, maybe a bit of each.

In his new book, the unfunny comedian Lenny Henry says Britain should pay reparations for slavery to every single black person in Britain and the British Caribbean. But it is his numbers that are truly ridiculous. He says we should pay reparations to the sum of £18 trillion. Now the people he wants to receive the money comes to about 45 million. He can’t have done the maths, or he got the Abbotpotamus to do them, as that comes out to a mere £4 million each.

Asylum seekers in a hotel in Bournemouth are not very happy. They claim they are in overcrowded accommodation, the food is not good, they don’t like the area, and they don’t know what the future holds for them. In fact, they said they would rather go home. Well, I think this tells us that if we move them out of hotels and into detention camps on remote Scottishland islands, the immigrants will be begging to go home. Then they will tell those back in their home countries that our streets are not paved with gold and they get awful attention, so with any luck the flood becomes a trickle.

Friday

Hi everyone, not bad when I popped out, it was sunny and not cold. I was delighted to see that the Trump peace initiative in Gaza has borne fruit, and it looks like Hamas has had enough and has given up. What I really liked was that when Trump thanked everyone who had helped get the deal over the line, he listed loads of countries and people, but it was noticeable that Legohead didn’t get a mention.

An interesting story coming out of Turkey regarding the 250 Boeing 737 Max aircraft they tentatively ordered last month. The order is dependent on a separate engine order with the only engine maker for the 737 Max, CFM International. When an airline buys many planes, it expects a big discount on both airframe and engines, but it seems CFM, as the monopoly supplier, is not playing ball, obviously thinking the order is in the bag. But from what I hear, Turkish Airlines is threatening to switch the order to Airbus A320neos, where there are two engine suppliers and hence competition for sales. I’m sure Turkish Airlines would have no hesitation to buy from Airbus, as they currently have 200 A320neos on order.

I told you it was going to happen and in September it did. The Airbus A320 family of aircraft has overtaken the Boeing 737 family as the biggest selling commercial airliner of all time. The plane that took them ahead, at 12,260 delivered, went to Saudi airline Flynas. The first A320 was delivered in 1988, while the B737 has been on sale since the 1960s, so Airbus has managed to overtake a huge Boeing start. But what really seems to have been the major turning point is the two fatal crashes in 2018 and 2019 that led to the B737 Max family being grounded. Both companies have massive order books, so the planes are going to stay in production for many years yet, but with the Airbus A320 out-producing the B737, I can’t see Boeing getting the lead back any time soon.

I have just caught a video on what happens to the bodies of people who die on a cruise ship. Well, it seems that despite the average age of cruisers dropping from 65 to 55 in recent years, a number of natural causes deaths can be expected on a 5,000-passenger cruise ship at approximately the same rate as a cohort of 5,000 ashore. This leaves cruise ships with a problem: what to do with the bodies. Do they leave them in the cabin and offload them at the next port of call to be flown home, or do they keep them on board until they return to the port of embarkation? Well, it seems that gone are the days of keeping the bodies in their cabins, with the body turning green and the bacteria multiplying in the gut and causing what I am told are referred to as ‘postmortem farts.’ Modern cruise ships are equipped with chilled mortuaries where bodies are kept in drawers at 2°C so they don’t decompose and are returned to the port of embarkation to be collected by an undertaker.

I learn that the government has come up with a great idea for the World Cup in America next summer. They intend to allow pubs to stay open to 1am so that customers can watch the matches. But the gormless lot haven’t been watching the news. FIFA are rather worried that the temperatures during the summer in the stadiums picked for the matches are too hot for games to be played. Therefore, they are going to kick off late in the evening when it gets a bit cooler. Unfortunately, it looks like England’s games are going to kick off at 2am, so the pubs will still be shut by then.

P&O Cruises has managed to upset a lot of its regular cruisers. The company currently operates seven cruise ships, five of which are termed ‘Family Friendly’ and two that are ‘Adults Only.’ Adults Only means that passengers are supposed to be 18 and over. But P&O has announced that due to the increased demand for family cruises, the two ‘Adults Only’ ships, Arcadia and Aurora, will take under 18s at certain high demand times starting with Christmas/New Year 2026/27 and then during the 2027 school holidays. Of course, this has upset people who do not want hundreds of young kids running amok on their holiday cruise. P&O has offered to refund deposits in full, so I can see those people who prefer not to be cruising with loads of children decamping to lines that offer Adults Only cruises, like Ambassador. Interestingly, Ambassador briefly flirted with allowing children on board but lost so many of their regular passengers that they quickly dropped the idea. I wonder if P&O will have to do the same thing.

The Liebore council in Brighton has been having a good old moan about empty houses in the city. According to them, there are currently 978 homes in the city that have been unoccupied for more than a year. This is despite homes empty for more than a year, and not in probate or being uninhabitable, being subject to double or more council tax. They say that those empty homes would go a long way to help their housing waiting list. I really don’t know why anyone would own a home and keep it empty, what advantage to them is it?

Saturday

Good morning people, it’s very grey and not terribly warm out there today. I see that things are progressing with the peace treaty in the Middle East. The Palestinians have declared the war over. The Israelis are withdrawing from Gaza and the UN says it is going to deliver thousands of tons of aid. The next big thing is the release of the sausages (as Legohead would say). The only problem with that is that Hamas says they don’t know where some of the hostages’ bodies are buried. If they don’t know, then I don’t know who does.

I hear that the Royal Navy has realised that it has a bit of a problem coming up at Devonport, Plymouth. The dockyard is to be the home of the fleet of Type 26 frigates once they are commissioned. Their maintenance is due to take place there, in what is known as its Frigate Sheds, which are three covered dry docks. However, it has been belatedly realised the new ships are too wide for the docks. It was suggested that they could swap over home port with the Type 31 frigates that are to home port at Portsmouth but they too, although slightly narrower, are still too wide for the Frigate Sheds. The run of three Frigate Sheds was originally built in the 1970s and lengthened in the 1980s to accommodate the longer Type 23 frigates. But because the docks are side by side, it isn’t possible to widen all three without demolishing them and starting again, which is considered too expensive. In any case, the docks are needed to maintain the Type 23 frigates which are expected to remain in service until 2035. The MoD is claimed to be working on a solution. It sounds like they need one of Baldrick’s cunning plans.

Recent satellite pictures have revealed that what was once Russia’s huge tank reserves with over 7,300 in open storage, has been severely hit by three years of war with Ukraine. The tanks in the reserves are divided into three categories: ‘decent’, ‘poor’ and ‘ruined’. There are said to be just 92 T-72B tanks remaining in the decent category, there are more in the poor category, around 1,600 tanks, but the majority of these are older unfavoured models such as T-64 and T72A. There are 880 tanks in the ruined category, which are either beyond repair or have been cannibalised for spare parts. Similar statistics are reported for all sorts of other reserves including APCs, artillery and rocket launchers. It is only because Russia stored their equipment in huge open compounds that this sort of analysis is possible. It is not possible to analyse Ukrainian equipment in the same manner as they don’t store equipment in the same way.

Over the Atlantic, in Miami, Florida, aviation merchant bank and consulting firm AVi8 Air Capital has announced plans with Pan American Global Holdings to try to bring back Pan American Airways. Pan American Global Holdings hold the naming rights to Pan Am that went bust in 1991. Pan Am was basically an international airline that struggled to make a profit for many years due to several problems, including the 1970s oil price shock, increasing competition due to deregulation and its reliance on international services. The new group is currently applying for certification as an airline with the FAA. If successful, they plan to buy a fleet of Airbus planes and operate out of Miami.

I read that the Rail Operations Group has made its first revenue-earning journey with its new Class 93 locomotives. These engines are a bit different in that they are ‘tri-modal’. Bi-modal locomotives, that use both diesel and overhead electrical propulsion, are quite common, but these locos, made by Stadler Rail in Valencia, have added battery power. ROG specialise in moving rail stock around the network, operating charter services and ad hoc locomotive hire to other rail companies. I understand they currently have 10 of these go-anywhere locomotives, out of 30 on order.

In the United States, the commander of a ballistic guided missile submarine, USS Wyoming’s Blue Crew, has been sacked without anyone really being told why. US nuclear missile subs have two crews, Blue and Gold, that alternate so that the boats can spend longer at sea. For some reason the Yanks don’t want to tell us what this officer has done, only that they have ‘lost faith’ in him. What Cmdr. Robert Moreno has done is either so serious that the US Navy don’t want to tell us or so petty that they are afraid of looking stupid. If they don’t tell us the reason there is likely to be loads of speculation.

I understand that Ukraine is being used by both sides for the development of new types of warfare. The most common seems to be drones of all sizes: tiny drones with a camera for reconnaissance, bigger kamikaze ones that carry a warhead into vehicle, trench or bunker and even bigger ones to attack infrastructure many miles behind the front line. In recent weeks, Ukraine seems to have developed a long-range drone capable of flying thousands of miles behind the lines and attacking oil refineries and power stations. This matches Russia’s ability, where they use Iranian manufactured drones. So western companies have been rushing to develop cheap effective drone defences. I hear that Thales have taken a hint from the common soldier, who has found shotgun pellets are quite effective, and have developed a cheap warhead for the standard 70 rocket that bursts in the air and sends out a wall of steel balls covering around 80 feet in diameter. Ukraine has been trialling this weapon and like it so much they have asked for more.

Well, that’s me done for the week and although it’s not very bright here in London at the moment, I think it is probably warm enough to snooze on my favourite windowsill. If it’s a bit chilly I can always meow at the front door to be let in. Chat to you all next week.
 

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