Larry’s Diary, Week Three Hundred And Thirteen

Monday

Good morning, my friends, and it’s grey and cold in the capital city this morning. I am rather looking forward to this week. Legohead is off to China for three days, then on to Japan, and he is taking his begging bowl. He hopes to sign a trade deal allowing the Chinese to dump their excess production on us, claiming it is a good deal because we will be getting cheap manufactured goods. Wouldn’t it be better to make things in the UK?

A terrible weekend for Legohead. He was in one of those lose, lose positions once Mascara Man had announced he wanted to run for the vacant parliamentary seat of Gorton and Denton. If he was to stand and win, it would only be a matter of time before he ran against Legohead as leader. If he stood and lost, the chances are Reform would have another seat. But to run he must resign as the Mayor of Manchester, and win or lose the parliamentary seat it is likely to be another Reform win. So, what did Legohead do, he got his supporters on the NEC to block Mascara Man from standing and landed up looking scared.

A big order for Airbus over the weekend. An all-Boeing airline, Air Europa, announced it was to acquire 20 x A350-900s, with options to purchase another 20. This is part of its aircraft replacement and expansion plan. The idea is it will eventually take over the long-distance services currently operated using the Boeing 787-8s and 787-9 and eventually creating new destinations. The Airbus A350 is a highly successful aircraft, with over 1,500 now sold.

A big turnout this morning for the launch of ‘Veterans for Reform’. Lots of promises from the party leaders to support military veterans when they come to power. Also, a promise to repeal the Troubles Act that will allow the prosecution of soldiers who served in Northern Ireland. It looks like Reform will do a lot more to support the military veterans than Liebore are doing.

At the end of the ‘Veterans for Reform’ announcement, Nigel Farage made a speech before pulling another rabbit out of his hat and introduced his latest defector from the Tory party, Suella Braverman. Her announcement that she had today resigned the Tory whip, left the party and joined Reform, where she becomes their 8th MP. This cat was only surprised that it had taken her so long, she has long been more of a Reformer than a Tory.

Another big story today is coming out of Israel, where the Israeli Defence Force has announced that they have recovered the body of the last hostage held by Hamas. This was an Israeli police officer and reservist who had been killed in fighting and whose body was taken back to Gaza. The IDF has carried out DNA testing on the body and confirmed it is that of Master Sgt Ran Gvili. The body will now be returned to his family so it can be properly buried.

I was just wondering what my final story of the day was to be when it was announced that the Gorton and Denton by-election is to take place on Thursday 26th of February. Being only a month today, that is unusually quick. One of the odd things about electoral law is that candidate nominations must be in four weeks before the election day. This means that nominations must be in by Thursday. There is lots of speculation as to who is going to stand for what party. Will Gorgeous George Galloway stand, will not his real name, Zak Polanski, stand, who will stand for Reform, will it be Zia Yusuf or one of the seatless Tory defectors like Sir Jake Berry, Jonathan Gullis or Nadhim Zahawi. We will know at 4pm on Thursday.

Tuesday

Hi folks. So, a horrid wet night and morning weatherwise, but brighter because Legohead is heading to China. Was I a happy pussycat when I learnt that Legohead’s lot are being sued for £50 million by the Government of Rwanda for breaking the deal with them to take our illegal immigrants.

I have been reading about the one nuclear powered cruiser the Russians have. It is a bit of a strange ship, armed to the teeth, but rather out of date. It is designed to cruise at 32 knots but can’t go faster than 25 knots on steam from its nuclear reactor. To go any faster, it relies on additional steam from two oil fired boilers. But that’s not the end of it. The nuclear reactor is so unreliable that it carries a spare. Then there are its Granit anti-ship missiles. These are a 1970s design and were originally used on the Oscar class submarines. These were designed to be vertically launched from underwater, and the designers of the Kirov class cruiser decided to launch the missiles on this cruiser in a similar way. Before its main armament can be fired, its missile tubes must be flooded with sea water.

Yesterday I told you about Airbus getting a big order for its A350-900 aircraft. Today I bring you what is not yet an order, but a rumour of a huge one being negotiated with Air Asia. The airline is already a massive customer of Airbus, with around 350 x A320neo planes on order. This includes 50 x A321XLR planes to be used on new long-distance services. But this is a rumoured move in the opposite direction, for short haul regional routes. The word I hear is that Air Asia is looking for about 100 x A220 150 seat aircraft, the smallest plane in the Airbus family. In addition, it is expected there would be an additional 50 options.

In Moscow they have been trying a Ukrainian naval officer for ordering the missile attack that sunk the guided missile cruiser Moskva in the early days of the Russian war with Ukraine. The report said the court was presented with evidence that the Moskva was hit by two Ukrainian anti-ship missiles, which caused a fire and explosions before the ship sank. The report says the officer was found guilty in absentia and sentenced to life in prison. Very quickly the report was withdrawn because it contradicted the official Russian story that the Moskva suffered a freak accident where a fire got out of control and set off ammunition. So how can the Ukrainian be found guilty of firing missiles that sunk the ship if it suffered a freak accident. Moscow seems to have shot itself in the foot.

A roundabout in the BBC South Today area has just won Roundabout of the Year from the Roundabout Society. It had six wooden sheep on it and a local group dress up the sheep to celebrate ‘events’. They are currently in yellow and black jerseys to honour the local hockey club. How exciting.

The Home Secretary has said that the police are going to use chat bots to answer emergency calls, claiming that it will free up 3,000 officers for other duties. I can imagine the scenario, you have just been subject to a vicious assault in the street, and a bot takes your call, asking you to give a full description of the assailant before giving you a crime number and telling you the case is closed. At the same time those 3,000 freed up officers are busy monitoring Facebook and Instagram for hurty words.

On the day that Legohead flies off to Beijing for a three-day visit, a newspaper has revealed that the Chinese have been bugging the phones of our highly placed politicians and political advisers for years. In addition, the paper says that the Security Services have known this for years. But the phones being bugged were their own phones and not the secure phones issued to ministers and top civil servants. I remember Boris being told off for continuing to use his own phone when PM and not using his secure phone.

Wednesday

Good morning everyone. Dry at the moment, but the garden was very soggy when I wandered behind the gardener’s hut. Reform UK revealed their candidate for the Gorton and Denton by-election at a presser in the constituency yesterday afternoon. They have selected Prof. Matt Goodwin, who is probably better known in recent times as a presenter on GB News. Listening to him speaking at the event, he came over as very solid and a good candidate. I understand he has a very good chance of winning the seat without Mascara Man standing. But I do wonder who the other candidates are going to be.

The Tories were so unhappy about Suella Braverman’s defection to Reform, that they put out a statement saying she had mental health problems. Three hours later they had second thoughts and reissued the statement without the mental health jibe. I wonder what prompted that decision, could it be fear of being sued.

I hear that over 50 Liebore MPs have written to Legohead saying he got the ban on not letting Mascara Man run for Gorton and Denton wrong. Legohead is always up for a U turn and seems to bend with the political wind. It would be funny if he were to change his mind on this one and let Mascara Man be the candidate when they are announced tomorrow teatime. Legohead seems to be weighing up which is worse, losing an MP or losing a Metro Mayor. At the moment losing an MP is more acceptable than losing a Metro Mayor, because he has a lot more MPs and it doesn’t matter to him if he loses another expendable foot soldier. Mind you, when the letter writers total gets to over 80, he needs to look out because that is the number required to trigger a leadership election.

It has been revealed that a judge in Lee Anderson’s constituency of Ashfield stopped an 18-year-old girl who had been raped twice in a Sutton-in-Ashfield park, by a Pakistani illegal immigrant, Sheraz Malik, from revealing him as an illegal immigrant in court. The judge then went further and banned the press from reporting the story until after the trial. Fortunately, the Pakistani was found guilty and is now in prison awaiting a sentencing hearing next month. But why are we paying for this man, surely as soon as the jury said the word “Guilty” he should have been on a plane back to Pakistan.

In Japan they have been working on turning a coastal defence missile with a 200-kilometre range into a long-distance stand-off missile with a range of over 1,000 kilometres. But not only have the Japanese increased its range five-fold, but they have also given it stealth capabilities, the ability to fly very low, under radar, and something unique, the ability to fly random corkscrew movements. It has just made its first test flight when it was released by a JSDF F15 fighter jet and is said to have performed faultlessly.

Speaking of Japan, I read that they are a little unhappy with the USA not standing by their military contracts. Earlier this month the Japanese Audit Authority reported that the Americans have failed to deliver $6.9 billion of weapons to the Japan Self-Defense Forces. Apparently there are 118 unfulfilled contracts going back over five years. The Japanese say that timetables for delivery built into contracts are regularly missed. However, the American side says that the delivery schedules in the contracts are for information only and are not fixed targets that the Government can be held to. The Japanese say that the vast majority of contracts have been paid in full and the American contractors have no incentive to make deliveries.

An interesting story coming out of the London suburb of Cricklewood. On 28th December 2021 at quarter past seven in the morning white Metropolitan Police armed with machine guns broke down the front door of an 82 year old man and tasered him, before throwing him on the floor, handcuffing him and holding him in custody for 12 hours. What had the old man done? Absolutely nothing. The Police, who were looking for a 25 year old black man, who was reported to have a gun. But they had gone to the wrong address. Within 48 hours they had written a letter of apology and promised compensation. The years ticked over and no compensation arrived. The 82 year old involved a solicitor but still no compensation. So the solicitor opened a court case. Five years later on the eve of the case the Met Police signed a cheque for £50,000.

Thursday

Hello folks, and it’s dull and cold here in Westminster. Despite Legohead being in China, and then Japan, things don’t get any better at home. His lot have announced that they have decided that welfare cuts have been put on the back burner for at least a year. That basically means the backbenchers have won and there will be no changes to the welfare system in this Parliament.

I hear today that this new Chinese embassy is the biggest capitulation of all time, just because Legohead thinks he is going to get a massive trade deal. Well, I have news for him, they are playing you like the mug you are. I understand that he is not taking his own phone, instead he has a burner phone just for the trip. The Chinese will have bugged every inch of his accommodation and every room he uses. I hear that years ago, when Ted Teeth was PM, he visited China and was presented with an exquisite bone China tea set. When it was checked out by security there was a bug built into every piece of the tea set.

Since the announcement of the ‘one in, one out’ agreement with France, over 21,000 illegal immigrants have come into the country. How many have gone back to France under the agreement? Shabana Mahmood told a radio station that we had sent 284 to France, and in return we have taken in over 350. Why the discrepancy? Well, it seems that the ‘one ins’ are allowed to bring in wives and children.

Since the start of the year seven airlines have started or announced new services out of Gatwick. Air Arabia, Air France, Animawings, Capital Airlines, Condor, Eurowings, and Jet2 have all announced they are moving in. Some, like Air France and Eurowings, are moving services from Heathrow. The Eurowings move is interesting. The move has been prompted by British Airways dropping its Heathrow to Stuttgart service. They want to add more flights but additional slots are not available at jam-packed Heathrow. So Eurowings has chosen to move its services to Gatwick, where slots are available and cheaper.

Poland has been modernising its armed forces for some time now. They have bought Abrams tanks, HiMars rocket artillery and F-35s from the USA, and they have bought tanks, artillery and armoured vehicles from South Korea. As this new equipment has arrived some has gone into storage, and some has been given away or sold. For example, the Poles gave 12 x Mig 29s to Ukraine. The Ukrainians were happy to receive these aged jets, their pilots knew the planes well and their specialists had already upgraded the old Soviet technology to modern standards. I hear the Poles have another batch of Mig 29s ready to go, as they have been replaced by F-35s. This time the Poles are again offering them to Ukraine, but this time they want access to something in exchange. They want drone technology from Ukraine. In its war with Russia, drone technology has come on leaps and bounds and most of the world’s military has been watching. Ukraine has developed drones that clear trenches, drones that attack armoured vehicles, long-range drones that attack refineries and airfields and drones that attack ships. What could the Poles want with this technology?

The Defence Minister has just dropped a big hint in response to a question in Parliament about DragonFire, the DEW weapon we have been told will be installed on Type 45 destroyers. He added that due to its modularity it can be deployed on the Modular Frigates. What are the Modular Frigates? Well, it is the Type 26 and Type 31 frigates, the first of which are currently in final fit out, with others under construction. My guess is we are going to see DragonFire on these ships sooner rather than later.

The Liebore party have just shown how desperate they are to hold on to the Gorton and Denton parliamentary seat. They have put out an attack ad, purporting to show the Reform candidate, Matt Goodwin, attacking Manchester. But this is a carefully edited tape that was made when he was leaving the Tory Party Conference that was held in Manchester, and his criticism was of them. We are in for an interesting few weeks until the by-election.

Friday

Hi everyone, it has been raining hard overnight and was very soggy when I went out before breakfast. I was a little amused to read that several councils that have cancelled their elections have a problem. It seems that councillors are standing down to force by-elections. I think this is an excellent tactic. Now the councils will have to spend the money they claimed they were going to save, and Liebore and Tory councillors will, no doubt, be out on their arses.

A couple of interesting little things to note about Legohead’s visit to China. Firstly, did you notice that he went on a British Airways jet and not on an RAF jet. The reason is interesting. If he had gone on the RAF ministerial jet it would have sat on the tarmac for the three days of the visit and we would not be allowed to guard it against bugging. Using a scheduled BA flight meant it was only on the ground long enough for it to be turned round for the return flight. The second part made me laugh. The security forces on his trip have taken several pop-up tents to use in his bedroom, so that the spy cameras can’t get a picture of him in the nude while putting on his Jim Jams.

Figures have emerged that 450,000 parents have been fined for taking their children out of school for term time holidays. This is a ludicrous situation and shows what a totally ridiculous system we have introduced into education. It is not just the additional cost of holidays during school breaks but the ability of some people to be able to take their children on holiday out of term time. For example, if the parents are in the military and can only take leave at fixed times. Or a parent who works in a factory that closes in June and is open for business in June and July. I also hear that authorities are now ignoring the government guidance that they should only consider fines if a child misses more than five consecutive days and are also doubling fines by applying them to both parents. But the stupidity is that an £80 fine for each parent is still less than the additional cost of a week’s holiday in August.

Earlier this week Arsenal won their 8th and final match in the Champions League, league stage. So far they have won £85.3 million from this year’s competition. The sum is made up from £16.1 million in ‘participation’ money, £33.5 million from the TV pool, £15.8 million for winning eight matches, £11.5 million for qualifying for the round of 16, the knock out round, and £8.6 million for finishing top in the league stage. Of course you can add to that the takings from hosting four sell out home games. That is things like ticket sales, catering sales, programme sales and souvenir sales. They now move on to the knock out round of 16 meaning more money even if they lose, but having finished top in the league stage they should be seeded to play the lowest qualifier.

By comparison the Arsenal Women, who won last year’s Women’s European Champions League, were playing in the inaugural FIFA Champions Cup on Wednesday night, in front of a quarter full Brentford Community Stadium. The Cup is a seeded knock out competition between the winners of the six Women’s Champions Leagues. The European and North and South American champions were seeded into the semi finals and met another Champions League winners who went through a knock out path. Arsenal were playing the African Champions League winners, AS Far, who had beaten the Asian winners, who in turn had beaten the Australian winners. Arsenal Women beat AS Far 6-0 and will meet the other semi final winners, Corinthians Feminino, from São Paulo, Brazil, in the final on Sunday. But my whole point of writing this is to contrast how much the top women team can win compared to the men. On Sunday the winners will get €2.3 million and the losers €1.0 million, which is enormous for a women match.

Is the Assisted Dying Bill about to fall in the Lords by it being talked out? As a private members Bill it can only be debated on a Friday and even then it is in competition with other private members Bills. Opponents of the Bill think this is the most likely result. Of course supporters of the bill are not happy and are muttering about the will of the Commons and how they could invoke the Parliament Act. I always thought the Parliament Act could only be invoked if the Lords rejected a bill that was included in the Government’s manifesto, and this was not. It was a private members Bill.

I see the BBC are looking at pulling out of Freeview TV by 2034. The proposal is to swap all their free services to streaming via the internet. They argue that their services will still be free to licence holders. But this is not quite true. Yes it is true you will still be able to watch the BBC on the likes of Freely or iPlayer, but this sweeps the cost of the internet under the carpet. At the moment you can watch Freeview for just the cost of a TV in addition to a licence. But under the BBC’s proposal you will need a licence, a TV and the internet. How many pensioners will be able to afford another £25 or £30 a month to get the internet.

Saturday

Morning my friends, dry and chilly this morning, I hate winter. Legohead has now toured on to Japan, where he will no doubt be doing some more fabulous trade deals, or so he will tell us.

For teams playing in the FA Cup there are some strict rules imposed by the FA. For example, the home team must split the gate money 50/50 with the visitors. For this reason, lowly teams love to be drawn away against big teams as they make more money in a single match than they take during the rest of the season. When Macclesfield of the National League North drew Crystal Palace, of the Premier League and the Cup holder, Macclesfield were a little disappointed not to have been drawn away. But in a show of good will to the 7th tier club, Crystal Palace said Macclesfield could keep 100% of the gate money. But the FA has stepped in and told Crystal Palace they must take half the gate money. To do otherwise would be a breach of the competition rules.

I hear that Air India is still buying more planes to add to the hundreds it ordered from Boeing and Airbus back in 2023, when it placed 470 planes. At that time, it ordered 210 x Airbus A320, 40 x Airbus A350, 190 x Boeing 737 Max, for Air India Express, 20 x Boeing 787-9 and 10 x 777-9. But the vast bulk of these orders are still outstanding as these are popular types with long waiting lists. Consequently, Air India has been considering the mix and have just increased its 737 Max order by 30, following an increase of 100 x Airbus A320 last month. In addition, Air India has changed 15 of its A320 order to A321XLRs. It is not easy keeping touch with just how many planes Air India is buying.

While talking about planes, I hear that Airbus is pitching a new model of its A220 small plane to customers. Apparently the new model will be called the A220-500 and will carry 160 passengers, and provided there are enough interested airlines the official launch will occur at this year Farnborough Air Show. This is a logical step as the A220 family of aircraft is a modern jet that is very economical to fly, but a plane of this size will overlap the A320 series. I wonder if the plan is to drop the lower size A320s. Somehow I suspect that they will market both as long as there are customers for both.

A big independent report just out says the BBC has gone too far in DEI and woke casting. It talks about casting black actors to play historical characters who were obviously white, just for the sake of diversity. Doctor Who comes in for a special mention for its woke story lines which have spoiled the programme, lost audience and resulted in the programme being “rested”. Why did the BBC need a report to point this out? When even a cat, like me, could have told them immediately.

According to Legohead, China has agreed to drop sanctions on British parliamentarians, but so far this hasn’t been confirmed by the Chinese. However, I would be very reluctant to go to China, even if I had never been on the barred list. But there are a lot more people sanctioned by China than just parliamentarians, there are many businessmen and there has been no mention of them having sanctions dropped. I was listening to Ian Duncan Smith on the radio a few days ago and he was explaining that not only was he sanctioned by the Chinese, but so was every member of his family. If I was his cat I would not go to China, they would probably eat me.

Will the Greenies ever stop looking for ways to stop any oil and gas production in the U.K? I have heard that the latest story is about the Rosebank North Sea oil field. Rosebank is our biggest untapped oil field and under the current rules could be exploited. But the Greenies don’t want this to happen and have written to the government claiming that allowing a production licence could be in breach of international law. They claim that the Israeli company Delek Group, who are a minority shareholder in Rosebank, has dealings on the West Bank, which could possibly be against international law. It does rather look like the Greenies are clutching at straws.

That’s me finished for the week and I’m off for my afternoon snooze. It’s not raining and the sun is in and out. But it is still too chilly out for my old bones, so I think I’ll aim for a nap on Legohead’s bed. Chat to you all again next week.
 

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