Larry’s Diary, Week Three Hundred And Six

Monday

Good morning my friends, a horrible grey and wet morning today. It makes a change not to be reporting Legohead’s problems this morning but instead taking about the BBC. It is rudderless this morning, with the resignation of its Director General, Tim Davey, and its Head of News, over its doctoring of Trump’s speech to reverse its meaning. Teflon Tim has previously shrugged off scandal after scandal, Huw Edward, Gary Lineker, the Palestinian documentary to name a few recent ones. But the BBC have always been biased, going back to the General Strike, and keeping Churchill off the airwaves, the reporting of the ‘Troubles’ and the ‘Falklands’ and more recently ‘Climate Change’. The BBC News output needs a huge shake up.

Over the weekend a Palestine Action prisoner at Wandsworth was let out on day leave to attend his brother’s wedding. He was let out at 10 am on Saturday morning and due to return at 5 pm. But I’m sure you have already guessed that he failed to return and is on the run. Well, I’m sure Lammy will blame the Tories and the useless Prison Service, and the Justice Secretary will wriggle out of it again.

The Government has come up with a new idea on how to empty the immigrant hotels and this one is a beauty. The plan is to give every one of them £100 a week to volunteer to go and live with friends or relatives. Well, that is a lot cheaper than the £149 a day they are reported to cost us in hotels, but who is going to take in an illegal immigrant for such a pittance, it won’t keep them in cigarettes. If you were living in a 4-star hotel, all found, and given £49 per week in pocket money, would you volunteer to take an extra £100 per week to leave.

After a break in small boat crossings, due to unsuitable weather in the Channel, they have been back with a vengeance over the past three or four days with over 2,000 arriving on these shores. At £145 per day to keep each of them, that’s just under £186 million a year we will need from our taxes. When will we just turn them back to France and wave two fingers at the Frogs.

More information is emerging about the MD-11 freighter crash at Louisville, Kentucky last week. It was always clear that it lost its number 1, port, engine during its take-off run. There is film of the plane with a sheet of flame where the engine should be, and the engine was found part way down the runway. The question was why, with the starboard engine and the tail engine working, was the plane unable to take off. Closer analysis of the take-off film appears to show multiple compressor fails by the starboard engine with the distinctive puffs of flames coming from it. That would mean take-off thrust coming only from the tail engine and not enough thrust to get far off the ground. But what caused the problems with the No 2 engine. Was it hit by debris from the No 1 engine?

A big announcement from Reform this morning. They are setting up a group called ‘Small Business for Reform’ and calling for many of the nation’s small businesses to join them in a forum which will contribute to Reform UK’s small business plans for their manifesto for the next General Election. Farage had 300 small business owners in the audience, and their reaction to a range of questions from the media were enlightening with some of the questions pushing left-wing views being booed.

The Home Secretary is to look at the Danish Government’s response to asylum seekers. They have brought in some rules which are much tougher than those currently in place in the U.K. Denmark accepts far fewer asylum seekers than us and are much harder on them to contribute to taxes and learning the language, with those not coming up to the standard being deported. Well, I can’t see Liebore with their huge majority and pro-migrant views going down this route.

Tuesday

Hi folks, only a little damp under paw this morning when I ventured out. Well, this morning’s bad news is on employment or rather unemployment. The rate for the three months to September has gone up to 5%, a level last reached in Covid, but there was an excuse then. The real reason for this is the awful Robber Reeves budget last autumn, when she put up the minimum wage and put up employers’ National Insurance, killing off growth. It looks like she is going to make things worse in a week or so by putting up tax again. Some people never learn.

Yesterday another one of the ‘one out, one in’ migrants returned to the UK. No mention of the man’s nationality or name, only that the Government says he has been detained and will be re-deported. I wonder if this is the same man as before who is to be slung out again, or is this a new man. Does he get another pre-loaded card with another £2000 on it?

According to Nigel Farage when he spoke to the Donald, he was hopping mad about the BBC doctoring the video of his speech which I talked about yesterday. Now I hear the Donald has written to the BBC demanding a full and fair withdrawal of the Panorama programme, an apology to Trump and compensation. He is also threatening to sue them for $1 billion. This is far more than the BBC’s cash reserve of £477 million. But the Donald sued some of the American TV network for $1 billion, but settled for $16 million. This is going to be fun.

I don’t know how many times Lufthansa has publicly told the media that it will not be buying the Airbus A321XLR, putting them in a small club of airlines that have totally rejected the plane. Its capacity and range have made it a huge seller, within the first week of its launch it had received hundreds of orders. The likes of Qantas have dumped the Boeing 737 and are replacing it with the A321XLR. Well, it seems that Lufthansa has changed its mind and is investigating the possible purchase of the A321XLR for both its own and its subsidiary Eurowings. What is that old saying, ‘Never say never’.

It was interesting to hear that Lord Bamford, the owner and Chairman of JCB, has just given £200,000 to both the Tories and Reform UK to help them support small businesses. JCB has grown into the world’s 3rd largest manufacturer of civil engineering machinery, with 22 factories on 4 continents and had sales of £5.8 billion last year. Giving away £400,000 is peanuts to Lord Bamford, he is said to be worth £9.5 billion and is reported to have previously given £10 million to the Conservative Party.

The Home Office is trying to set up a scheme to set up deportees in their own businesses. This means that a sex criminal who gets deported at the end of their sentence not only gets a cash bung, but gets aid in setting up a small business, their airfare home and another £3000 to help set up the business. The lunatics have taken over the asylum.

Canada is still considering buying a substantial number of Saab Gripen E fighters in place of its order for US F-35As. The big problem is that the Gripen uses a US-built engine, the General Electric F414-GE-39E. But Saab would dearly love to land this order and are bending over backwards to land it. For example, they are willing to set up a production line in Canada and to re-engine the plane with a Rolls-Royce engine, the EJ230, a version of the EJ200 used in the Eurofighter. This is all very tempting for Canada who have long wanted to re-establish domestic military aircraft production. The last military aircraft maker was Avro Canada, who were bankrupted when the Canadian Government cancelled the Avro Arrow delta wing interceptor in 1959.

Wednesday

Good morning everyone, when I headed for my lovely cat basket last night the forecast said heavy rain this morning, so I was surprised it is dry. It seems that we now have 4,000,000 people on benefits with no need to ever work. I wonder how much this is costing you.

Yesterday I told you about the increase in unemployment. Today I give you an example. The Port of Aberdeen has just announced that they are going to have to reduce jobs, they haven’t yet announced exactly how many. But the port saw a 25% drop in North Sea oil and gas activity over the summer. The reason for this fall is very simple, oil and gas companies are no longer looking for new fields because of Red Ed Millipede’s ban on new exploration licences. The Government promised thousands of well-paying green jobs, where are they. Shell has just pulled out of building 2 offshore wind farms because they can’t see them making money, so that’s more potential jobs gone.

Greece and Turkey have for a long time struggled to get along with each other and have had a few skirmishes. Now I hear that Greece is unhappy with the Turkish purchase of 20 Tranche 5 Eurofighters from the U.K., as the planes are better than the Rafale jets that they operate. Greece is not so worried about the 24 second-hand Eurofighters they have agreed to buy from Qatar and Oman as these are Tranche 3 planes and the equal of their Rafales and are armed with the same missiles. Consequently, Greece is looking at buying the latest version of the Rafale so as not to give the advantage to Turkey.

I see that the Ministry of Defence has managed to scrape together some funding and is to join with the Germans to buy the latest generation of M3 amphibious bridging and ferry systems from General Dynamics European Land Systems (GDELS). The M3S is a version of the amphibious bridging equipment built for Sweden. Apparently the new vehicle is designed to cross ‘wide wet gaps’, which I guess means rivers and canals, and deploys in minutes to produce a floating bridge strong enough to support every NATO vehicle, including main battle tanks. No mention of how many we and the Germans will be getting for our €450 million contract.

On Monday I talked about the MD-11F crash in Louisville and how FedExpress and UPS had pulled out of operating them until the cause of the accident was understood. There are only 3 operators of the MD-11 left, and they are all US freight lines, and the third, Western Global Airlines, has now voluntarily joined them. The Federal Aviation Administration has now followed them with an air directive banning them from flying. So all 67 of the world’s remaining MD-11F aircraft are now parked, I hate to think what is happening to the US parcels business.

The Romanian Air Force has just acquired 18 second-hand F-16s from the Royal Netherlands Air Force, bringing its fleet up to 67. But that is not the whole story. The planes are redundant from the RNAF because they are being replaced by F-35As purchased from the USA. The whole package of planes, spares and simulators was sold for just €1. But why did Romania want them. Well, they are running the training school for converting Ukrainian pilots to F-16s.

It looks like the Government is poised to give the go ahead for the nation’s first small modular reactor. It looks like they have chosen Wylfa in Anglesey which has won out over Oldbury, Gloucestershire. Both were sites previously used for full-size power stations and have the advantage of already being linked to the National Grid. This will be excellent news for Rolls-Royce as it will be the first of their SMRs. Once we have an SMR up and running I suspect more orders will roll in.

Thursday

Hello folks, not a bad morning weather wise and Felix chicken in gravy for breakfast. I’m sure I told you I don’t like the jelly version, it’s slimy. Anyway, I see more bad news for Legohead this morning, growth slumped to 0.1% in the quarter from July to September, half of what was expected, many due to a slump in car sales, much of which is blamed on JLR halting production due to a cyber-attack. Things are going from bad to worse for Legohead.

So, Calamity Lammy, the Tottenham Turnip, has announced that 91 people have been wrongly released from prison since the spring. That’s roughly one every other day. Luckily many have been recaptured and are back inside. But it seems that there is one, an Albanian drug dealer, who has been on the run for over a year. But it could be 92 because they don’t know if 1 person is in prison or not, they have just lost him. What a mess. The Turnip says a new AI system is going to replace the current paper system, and it will solve everything. Funny how the paper system worked until this lot became the Government.

A nice story emerging about Ed Millipede and COP 30. Some months ago, he sent out an underling to Brazil to scope out a hotel as to whether it was suitable for the great man. Of course, it was not and he was booked into a 5 star. Then he flew out to COP 30 with Legohead and came back with him when he came back for Remembrance Day. But now he is back off to Brazil for more of COP 30. That’s 2 x 12,000 mile trips to one event and 6 tonnes of CO2. I hear the Amazonian natives attacked the conference yesterday. I do hope that poor little Ed is OK.

A new report out from the NHS reveals that last year they carried out 313 operations on people whose sex was recorded as female, but the operations were for male problems. They included penile malfunctions and prostate cancer.

The rumour running rife around the street at the moment is that Liebore back benchers are plotting a coup against Legohead. It seems they are putting Wes Streeting forward as their candidate for Leader and consequently PM. But I have heard that he is a stalking horse. They don’t really want him as PM, he is just to hide the real candidate. I hear they really want someone much more to the left and the word I hear is that it is between the Ginger Growler and Ed Millipede. Can you imagine the utter chaos if either one of them were PM.

I see that one of the deputy leaders of the Green Party, Rachel Millard, appears to be a hypocrite. She has long campaigned for asylum seekers and refugees, but I see she is now not very happy that they could be housed near her in East Sussex and has jointly written to the county council. This looks like a case of not in my backyard.

What is going on with the money donated to set up ‘Your Party’. It is all very murky but as I hear it the Sultana was quick off the mark and set up a website for donations that went to a company that she is solely in charge of and has banked some £850,000. ‘Your Party’ would dearly love to have these funds ahead of their founding conference, as they need to pay for it. But there are questions over whether the money was raised legally and if they received it, they might have to pay it back. Sultana is said to have offered to pay 4 x £200,000 tranches and the remainder when the company with the donations has paid all its expenses and shut down. But this is not likely to happen as at the moment it would be hard for ‘Your Party’ to accept. On top of that, no one knows if the £850,000 is still in the company’s account or if it is invested somewhere. What a mess, I wonder if we are going to see writs flying.

Friday

Hi everyone, it is a horrible wet morning and it’s forecast to last all day. It’s not my sort of weather in the slightest, I might have to use the dreaded litter tray. I did see the pathetic apology by the BBC to the Donald which basically said we made a mistake, so go on and sue us, you can’t win. Then a second case of them editing the same speech two years earlier came to light. The BBC is still in trouble, and I wouldn’t be surprised if the Donald goes ahead and sues them in a Florida court.

What is happening in Number 10. It now seems that all this business of ministers plotting against Legohead is something dreamt up by the Pirate McSweeny to support Legohead. But it also looks like it was timed to coincide with the main target, Wes Streeting, being away from the Commons in Birmingham. However, Streeting simply batted away the accusations of plotting against Legohead and if anything has landed up in a stronger position.

Yet another problem for Legohead, he has been rebuked by the Ethics Advisor for agreeing David Kogan’s appointment as new football regulator. It seems that Kogan, a long-term contributor to the Liebore Party, donated to both Lisa Nandy Pandy and Legohead’s leadership campaigns. Nandy Pandy passed her recommendation for Kogan across Legohead’s desk and got his approval. If that had been a Tory PM breaking the rules Liebore would have been shouting for their resignation and a General Election.

The Treasury has finally agreed that a £1.0 billion necessary to pay for redundancies at NHS England can be spent and it has been agreed with the Department of Health. The DoH will now proceed to make redundant around 18,000 administrative staff and managers, including on local health boards. However, it is all a bit of a fiddle as no money is changing hands, only the NHS will be allowed to overspend its budget. OK, it will ultimately save the NHS, and hence the Government, lots of money in the long run, particularly if those made redundant can find other jobs. But it is hard to see staff moving into other jobs when the unemployment numbers are going up and yesterday’s papers were talking about the numbers of unemployed going up by 1,000 a day.

I have been reading the trading statement put out yesterday by Rolls-Royce and I picked up on a few little bits that enlarged on some of the things I have told you about. Apparently the new design of high-pressure turbine blade is better than I was initially led to believe, and it is leading to the time on wing for the latest version of the Trent 1000 doubling rather than increasing by 50% as I told you. It is also being looked at for the Trent 7000. Rolls are working on a portable micro reactor for the US military, apparently the idea is to have something small enough to be lorry mounted and capable of powering forward operating bases. Finally, Rolls are working toward US approval of their SMR so that they can market them in the US.

I see that immigrants have set up a new camp city in Tottenham Court Road, London. Apparently it is occupied mainly by Eastern Europeans but there are also Africans and at least one Columbian. So, this is where it gets a bit tricky for the police who would love to move them on. Apparently a tent counts as a principal residence, and it is therefore illegal for the police to enter a ‘residence’ without the official paperwork. But if a tent dweller gets wind that the paperwork has been issued, they only have to move a couple of metres to a new pitch for the legal process to have to be restarted.

A report out on the beating to death of 10-year-old Sara Sharif by her parent has concluded that multiple chances to help were missed. The school had spotted fresh bruising then she started wearing Islamic dress so only her face could be seen. An investigation by Social Services was opened and closed in 10 days after they went to the wrong address. It was known that the father was violent and custody had gone to the mother, but it seems she was as bad. I bet the council will say ‘lessons will be learned’ and no one gets the sack.

Saturday

Good morning peeps, another grotty day. When I went out I was ready for my Felix when I got back. So, the Donald is not satisfied with the BBC’s mealy mouthed apology and has told the media that he is going to sue them for libel in the Florida court, where his home is, for up to $5 billion. Personally, I expect him to settle for a few million. But I suspect it will make the BBC think again about putting out any more lies. The BBC say it was a mistake but isn’t it strange that 90% of what the BBC puts out about Trump is derogatory.

I see I was right when I told you the Government was looking at Wylfa for the first Rolls small modular reactor. In fact, it is better than that, Great British Energy, Nuclear is to order 3 x SMRs from Rolls. In addition, GBE, N say the site could eventually house 8 x SMRs. But the stupid thing is that they are talking about it taking 10 years to build the first three. I am certain that given its head Rolls could deliver this project in half the time.

With the European Nations Championships taking place in the British Isles in 2028 it has come as a shock to many that two of the country’s top stadiums will not host matches. Probably the two that people would expect to have a match or two are Liverpool and Arsenal. I hear that Arsenal asked not to be included as they are looking at expanding their stadium and it is quite likely that work will be going on in summer 2028. But what about Liverpool. It seems that their pitch is 4 metres too short for the UEFA finals, so they were automatically excluded from consideration.

The Canadian Navy is looking to buy 12 new conventional submarines and have reduced the possible suppliers to just two, one German and one South Korean. The Canadian need is quite urgent as they currently only have one of their existing 12 boats that is seaworthy and it has recently completed a 13 year maintenance period. I hear that part of the specification is that the boats must be bog standard at the Canadians want to be able to support them without specialist support.

40 years ago Margaret Thatcher started off the huge Broadgate development for British Land at London’s Bishopsgate, near Liverpool Street. The development covers 32 acres and includes several office buildings and a twice weekly street market. But my reason for reporting this today is that the Broadgate Shopping Centre, the first new shopping centre to open in London for many years, opened this week. Footfall in the area is still just below pre Covid days but is nearly back to the old levels, except on Friday as many people still only work a four day week and footfall then is down some 60%. I wonder if I could get Legohead to put me on a four day week.

As of March next year Jet 2 is going to expand its operations to Gatwick Airport. The idea is that they will base 6 aircraft there and will offer flights and holidays to 29 European sunshine destinations including Tenerife and Malta. The airlines will base some of their new Airbus 321neo aircraft at Gatwick meaning more engineering jobs, more local employment for air crew and quieter aircraft for the local residents. I find it interesting that Jet 2 made this announcement concurrently with Ryanair banning paper boarding passes.

Liebore has announced that it wants to do away with elected happens in Police and Crime Commissioners and merge the job in with the local Mayor. This is already what happens in many areas including London, so you can make up your own mind if you think it is a good idea. Oh, I also hear that Liebore has done particularly badly at getting Liebore candidates elected as PCC and that every council that has recently entered special financial measures has a Mayor who is also the PCC.

That’s me done for the week and it’s still grotty here in London this afternoon. I have decided that it is not an afternoon for the windowsill, so it is time to decide where to nap. If there is a nice blazing fire in the entrance hall it might be there but everyone coming past wants to chat to me which can be annoying. So, I might go and see if Legohead’s bedroom door is open, as he is away again I can curl up in the middle of his bed in peace. Chat to you all next week.
 

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