Larry’s Diary, Week Three Hundred And Eighteen

Monday

Good morning, my friends. It was sunny and fairly warm this morning when I popped out. Not a good weekend, as Legohead was around and held a couple of press conferences where he was his usual boring self. When he holds his next one, I want someone to ask him when we are going to invoke NATO’s Article 5, now we have been attacked by a third party. Could Iran survive an all-out attack by NATO members?

Legohead’s policy of sitting on the fence over Iran did not age very well. On Saturday morning, when the USA and Israel launched their attack on Iran, he announced that it was nothing to do with us. We would sit on the sidelines, watch what was happening and bar the USA from using our bases. By Saturday evening it was clear that the Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, Iran’s Supreme Leader, was dead, along with the country’s entire 48-man military leadership, in the first strike of the war. During Saturday and Sunday Iran fired missiles and drones at neighbouring countries. There were several explosions on civilian targets like shopping centres, airports and hotels. Then Legohead changed his mind and told the US they could use our bases to attack missile and drone launch sites. Within hours of this announcement it looked like a small drone had hit RAF Akrotiri. So much for sitting on the fence.

In London’s Golders Green, Jews and Iranians gathered in the streets to party over the death of Khamenei. The fact that they sang and danced happily together was remarkable, but what was even more impressive was that they joined together in singing “Kier Starmer is a W—ker.” I suppose I should not be surprised, as Legohead has just broken his own record for the lowest ever approval rating for a Prime Minister by hitting -49.

On a much lighter note, yesterday was the earliest ever St Totteringham’s Day. For those of you who have never heard of St Totteringham’s Day, it is the day when Tottenham Hotspur cannot overtake Arsenal in the Premier League. The earliest this has ever occurred before was 7 March. This year it was a week early, on 1 March.

Robber Reeves looks to have a bit of a problem looming over the Iran war. She is to make the “Spring Statement” in the Commons tomorrow and is widely expected to raise the tax on petrol and diesel, arguing that the tax has not gone up for many years. But since the fighting started the cost of oil has gone up by $10 a barrel, and this is likely to cause a big jump in pump prices. Without doing anything this will bring a jump in oil revenues, coming from the taxes on oil and the VAT on its sale. Robber must now decide if she can still afford the damage to the economy that both an increase in the market price and an increase in tax will cause.

I see that the EU has, as usual, leapt into action over the Iran war. When the joint USA-Israel attack and the Iranian response became clear on Saturday, what did the EU do? Well, they announced a meeting to discuss their response. But the meeting was not on Saturday, and it was not even on Sunday. It is to take place today, Monday.
An interesting development this morning. Reform UK’s Shadow Chancellor, Robert Jenrick, put out a video highly critical of Robber Reeves over her long-term association with Arshad Khatana, Chairman of Leeds Mosques. Khatana has made many statements in favour of the Iranian regime and in favour of terrorism, has allowed some very nasty Islamic speakers at Leeds Mosque, and has said he will only support Legohead and Robber as long as they comply with his views on Iran. The Labour Party this morning suspended Khatana as a party member and said Reeves would not have remained friends with him if she had been aware of his views. Reeves has had over 25 documented meetings with Khatana over 10 years and has been to his house for dinner.

Tuesday

Hi folks, nice and sunny again this morning and no rain in the forecast, but it was still wet underfoot when I headed down the garden. I hear another announcement slipped out under the cover of the Iran war. MPs are to get an above-average pay rise of 5% on 1 April, taking their pay to £98,599 pa. What is interesting is that next year’s pay increase is very likely to take their pay to over £100,000 pa and into what is known as “the £100,000 tax trap”, where they end up paying more in tax than they get in the pay increase. They would need to be paid over £125,000 pa to get a real increase. This is particularly applicable to MPs who have children and lose Child Allowance at £100,000 pa. Still, they all get pots full of expenses.

The fighting in the Iran war seems to have escalated today with both Hezbollah and the Houthis getting involved. The two Iranian proxies have both been firing missiles and drones. In the case of Hezbollah, it has been from southern Lebanon into northern Israel. This does not seem to have done much harm, as of the seven rockets launched, six fell on open ground while the seventh was taken out by the Israeli Air Force. It is suspected that it could have been them who sent two drones against RAF Akrotiri. The Houthis were a bit more successful. They fired drones over the Persian Gulf at a huge Saudi oil refinery. I doubt that Legohead has the nerve to hit back, but the Saudis are a different kettle of fish.

The Green Party showed itself in its true light at the weekend. Its leader, Zac Polanski (NHRN), went on the BBC Sunday Morning programme and declared that we should break off all relations with the USA for attacking Iran, we should leave NATO, we should lay down our nuclear weapons, and we should have a nice chat with President PooTin. Then their joint deputy leader, Mothin Ali, was spotted at a London rally supporting the Iranian regime. So the Greens are showing themselves to be a mad Communist Islamist party.

It is not only British and US tourists in the Middle East who have problems getting home due to the war between the US, Israel and Iran. I hear that two German cruise ships, Mein Schiff 4 and its sister ship Mein Schiff 5, are stuck in the Persian Gulf. MS 4 is in the harbour of Abu Dhabi in the United Arab Emirates. The 2,500 passengers and 1,000 crew on board had a shock yesterday when a missile exploded in the sea near them. On the MS 5, Saturday was changeover day in Doha and many passengers were already at the airport when the war broke out and the airport closed. I understand that some passengers were stuck on planes for hours before being returned to the ship without any luggage. But they are not the only cruise ships stuck in Gulf ports. I hear that MSC Euribia from MSC Cruises, the Celestyal Discovery and Celestyal Journey from Celestyal Cruises, and the Aroya from the Saudi shipping company Aroya Cruises are also stuck in various ports.

It has emerged that in the early hours of Monday morning three US F-15E Strike Eagle planes were shot down by friendly fire in Kuwait. There are no details yet as to what occurred, but at least the six aircrew all ejected safely and parachuted to the ground before being taken to hospital.

I saw in the latest Cruise Industry News that right now there are 78 cruise ships on order, equating to nearly 350,000 new berths. Of course these are on order for delivery up to 2037. This year’s count alone is 13 ships, of which two have already been delivered. Fifteen are on order for 2027 and 13 for 2028. All the normal big-name cruise companies have ships on order, but Royal Caribbean seems to have the most on order with 15.

So, another resignation by a government minister today. This time it is Josh Simons, who was a Cabinet Office minister. It seems he ran “Labour Together” and was apparently responsible for commissioning the smear report on two Times journalists who had the audacity to investigate Labour Together’s funding. The report falsely branded the journalists as Russian agents and he passed the report on to the security services. The resignation seems to have been slipped out on “a good day for bad news”, as was said by a previous Liebore government.

Wednesday

Good morning, everyone. Another lovely sunny morning and it’s getting warmer. I had a chuckle at Legohead last night. He was a little annoyed with The Donald because he had called him “No Churchill” and said he was more interested in the Islamist vote, immigration, and green energy. The Donald is upset with Legohead for not allowing the US to use British bases, and he is right.

It seems that Liebore in Scottishland has a new problem. The father of the Scottishland leader, Anus Sarwar, has posted a tribute to Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, describing his death as “martyrdom”. The father, Mohammad Sarwar, was a Labour MP. Could Legohead’s reluctance to allow the USA to use UK bases to attack Tehran have anything to do with the number of Islamist MPs, members, and voters the party has?

The Iran attack on the Akrotiri RAF base has clearly revealed how Britain’s air force bases are badly under-protected against missile attack. Yes, we have decent protection for close-in attacks by aircraft, but we have no land-based anti-ballistic missiles. Over the years, we have not developed our own ABMs or bought them from the Yanks due to cost and the so-called “peace dividend”. Yes, we have decent missile protection on our frigates and destroyers, but unless one of these ships was permanently posted off Akrotiri, we are defenceless against ballistic missiles. Surely some of those ship-based missile types could be cheaply converted to land-based. It must be easier to launch a missile from a fixed site than a moving ship. It’s only a matter of spending some money on our defence.

When you start looking around, it is amazing what was announced on Monday and slipped under the carpet because the media was concentrating on Iran. I would not put this one in the “good day to bury bad news” category, but it didn’t get much coverage. The MoD announced that they had placed an order for 23 Leonardo AW149 helicopters. The order comes from the £1 billion Medium Helicopter funding. While good news for the people of Yeovil, where the helicopters will be built, it comes after a lot of lobbying by Leonardo threatening mass redundancies at the old Westland Helicopters factory.

A little more on Akrotiri. It is, of course, on the island of Cyprus, and Cyprus is a member of the EU, as is the great friend of Cyprus, Greece. I hear that Greece, acting on behalf of the EU, is sending two air defence frigates and two F16s to protect Cyprus and hence Akrotiri, something we seem incapable of doing.

The Republic of Ireland is supposedly a neutral country. Even though it is a member of the EU, it has an opt-out from their “common defence actions”. As a result, they only contribute 0.3% of their GDP to maintain their small military and hope that their neighbours will defend them in an event. One of their biggest problems is that their air force is made up of only a few trainers. Instead, they rely on the benevolence of the UK and the RAF. The UK takes on the defence of the west of Ireland principally because otherwise the west coast of England, Wales, and part of Scottishland would be unprotected and open to attack from that direction. However, I read that Ireland has recently ordered French armoured vehicles and artillery to “defend itself”. I wonder who Ireland thinks would want to invade them. Would they be better off buying a couple of dozen Typhoons, Rafales, or Gripens?

The government has been shamed into sending an air defence destroyer to RAF Akrotiri after both the Greeks (see above) and now the French are sending air defence ships and aircraft. We already have Typhoons there, and apparently they have already brought down two drones. Legohead is reportedly considering sending a Type 45 air defence destroyer to Cyprus. The Type 45 is equipped with 48 Sylver vertical launch cells with both short- and long-range missiles. Unfortunately, these are an old system and scheduled to be updated to something more suitable for taking out ballistic missiles. I have a problem with this assignment. HMS Duncan is reported to be alongside in Portsmouth and apparently has a short-term maintenance problem, and HMS Dragon is due to go on an exercise. The other four Type 45 destroyers are in long-term maintenance. It now seems the decision has been made to send HMS Dragon, but how long it will take to get to Cyprus is unclear. The answer is about a week after it leaves Portsmouth, but when that will be seems to be anybody’s guess. We could have a ship off Akrotiri only when the war is over.

Thursday

Hello folks, it’s even warmer this morning in the sun. I’m going to rush my stories for today so I can get out to the windowsill. Yesterday, at PMQs, Legohead boasted that a government rescue flight from Oman would be bringing people home that evening. This morning, I hear it didn’t happen. People queued for up to four hours to check in and eventually boarded the flight, where they sat for several hours before being deplaned and taken to a hotel. Apparently, the plane went “technical,” and another attempt to fly will be made tonight.

I have been looking at this business of sending ships to defend RAF Akrotiri. Just about the only ship we have capable of doing the job, HMS Dragon, was in Portsmouth on 72-hour notice. So, it might sail today and take a week to get there, or it might not. Instead, a French frigate arrived on Tuesday, and two Greek frigates arrived yesterday. This is embarrassing. We have a bigger navy than the French but not a single ship in the Mediterranean. Why? Well, as I hear it, the government has told the Royal Navy they have to save £2.6 billion from this year’s budget, and the only way they can do it is not to have ships at sea. Thatcher would have sent an aircraft carrier group. But we have one carrier in dry dock, and the other in Portsmouth with its air group (two squadrons of F-35Bs) disembarked. Mind you, we only have 47 F-35Bs. We lost one overboard a couple of years ago, and it has not been replaced. So, we don’t even have enough to fully fill our two aircraft carriers. We originally were going to buy 150 of these planes, 90 for the RAF and 60 for the RN, but once again, we needed to save money.

Here’s a strange thing, and I don’t have an answer as to why it has been allowed to happen. You will remember that the Tories cancelled the leg of HS2 from Birmingham to Manchester except for a bit to link into the East Coast Main Line to Scottishland. But I read we are going to continue the HS2 line two miles north of the junction with the ECML. It will not actually go anywhere and will terminate in the middle of a field. I wonder how much a mile of HS2 costs.

Another day and another Liebore scandal. It seems that hardly a day goes by without another problem arising. This time it is the arrest of three men accused of spying for China. The link is that one of the men is the partner of a Scottish Liebore MP, and another is the partner of a former MP. What is it with Liebore? They seem to have had more scandals in the 20 months since coming to power than the previous government had in 14 years.

Yesterday, the Yanks sunk an Iranian frigate that thought it was safe in the Indian Ocean off Sri Lanka. It was hit by a torpedo from a US submarine, and the latest news I have heard is that the Sri Lankan navy say they have picked up 30 sailors and 80 bodies out of the 150 on board. The Yanks boasted that this was the first warship sunk by a submarine using a torpedo since WW2. But it wasn’t. The Yanks had to be reminded about a certain Argentinian cruiser called General Belgrano, which the Royal Navy sank in the Falklands. The boast has been changed to the first ship the US has sunk with a torpedo since WW2.

The rumour going around Number 10 is that when Legohead decided to send a warship to Cyprus to protect RAF Akrotiri, he called for a list of our warships that were active and found it was very short. So he picked out a name and said send that. The name he initially picked was HMS Victory because it had been in Portsmouth so long it had to be ready, but even the Tottenham Turnip knew it had no air defence capability, so that was called off. He settled for HMS Dragon because he was a Game of Thrones fan.

I read that Iran has fired a drone at Turkey, which the Turkish Air Force took out. I really wonder what Iran thought it was doing. Turkey has a huge military. Were the Iranians really trying to attack Turkey, where thousands of Iranians are fleeing to, or were they trying to hit the giant US Incirlik Air Base? Turkey is a NATO member, so they could activate NATO Article 5 and call on the help of all NATO members, even if we don’t, over the attack on the Akrotiri Sovereign Base.

Friday

Hi everyone, it’s a bit overcast but still warm this morning. I see we finally managed to get a rescue flight off from the Middle East, and it landed at Stansted just before 1 a.m. Well, we have managed to get a couple of hundred out of 140,000 Brits in the Middle East nearly a week after the war broke out. I hear the last people from Luxembourg got home yesterday.

The media is suggesting that the real reason Legohead opted out of supporting the US and Israel in attacking Iran was not the “illegal war” he talked about. Instead, several of the Labour Cabinet voted not to support the US and not to let them use our bases. But it was an odd coalition of Labour Cabinet members that voted against the Yanks. Apparently, the revolt was led by Red Ed Millipede, and his leading supporters were Mrs Copper-Balls and Robber Reeves. That is a very odd mix of bedfellows.

Another scandal seems to be brewing, this time with the Police Federation, the body that represents 140,000 police officers across England and Wales. City of London Police have been leading a fraud investigation into the Federation and on Wednesday arrested its head, Mukund Krishna, on suspicion of fraud. Two other board members were also arrested. Little else is known about the ongoing case except that Krishna is the Chief Executive of the Police Federation of England and Wales and is paid a mere £320,000 per annum.

The government is still looking at turning off Freeview in 2034, with the idea of everyone moving to internet-based TV by then. The problem with this is that it would mean high-speed internet is available to every household in the country. At the moment, 94% of the country has internet passing by its “gate,” even if it doesn’t have internet installed. Those without internet can currently get Freeview over the air or FreeSat where the DTT signal doesn’t reach. They can even get Sky via satellite, but Sky is looking at migrating its satellite customers to the internet, and FreeSat is already closing channels. This is all fine for people who already have a decent internet connection, but it is no good for those who don’t. The new Freely channels, which are to replace Freeview and FreeSat, are great for people who don’t have the internet, but their replacement, Freely, needs the internet and is consequently not free to its users.

I have mentioned it before, but the French-German dispute over their joint 6th generation fighter plane, GCAP, seems to be getting worse. This time it’s the French moaning about the Germans. The head of French plane maker Dassault has said that if the Germans do not give in and let Dassault lead the project, then they will kill it. It appears that the dispute between the two countries is unsolvable, and the two countries will go their own way.

A little more on our failure to have a warship available in the Mediterranean to protect Cyprus. I read that the last ship based in the Mediterranean was HMS Lancaster, a Type 23 frigate, and it was withdrawn and scrapped in December last year without replacement. Apparently, the reason for Dragon not going yet is that it was at the end of a short maintenance period and was being prepared for a “different” type of mission. This means that its current weapons load has to be removed and a different load taken on board.

Two weeks ago, Legohead stood up in Parliament and boasted that energy bills were coming down by £117 a year, something that was almost immediately shown to be rubbish as it had been moved to tax. Even with that supposed cut, the cost of fuel is up £76 pa since they came to power. Now I hear that energy prices are expected to go up by 10% in July.

Saturday

Morning, my friends, grey and mild again when I went down the garden. When I went to bed last night, I had just heard that they had turned off Ian Huntley’s life support, as he had been diagnosed as being in a vegetative state. I was not surprised this morning to hear he had died. The man was a monster and had been in prison for the killing of two 10-year-old girls in 2002. I hear that it costs £50,000 a year to keep someone like him in a high-security prison. That’s over £1 million wasted.

Four people were arrested under suspicion of terrorism. One was Iranian, and the other three were British-Iranians. I hear they had been watching and planning attacks on British Jews. I’m glad the security services are aware of the activities of Iranians in the U.K., even if Legohead isn’t and thinks all we need to do is talk to them nicely.

I read that Israel has shot down, in what the media has described as a dogfight, an Iranian jet. There are a couple of problems with these reports. The Iranian Air Force is made up of a collection of rather old planes. Their fighters were mostly old US and Russian planes, but no one knows how many they still have following several air battles with the Israeli Air Force over the years. On the first day of the war, there was video of an old Vietnam War–vintage F4 Phantom being bombed to bits. The reports do say that an F-35i shot down a Yak-130 fighter, but a Yak-130 is not a fighter—it is a trainer that can be fitted with guns and missiles in an emergency. I wouldn’t be surprised if there was no dogfight; the F-35i likely shot down the Yak with a “beyond the horizon” missile, and the pilot of the Yak never knew what hit him.

I hear that our air base in Cyprus is getting yet more protectors while waiting for HMS Dragon to arrive. This time, it’s Spanish, Dutch, and Italian frigates. In a day or two, Cyprus will be the best-protected place in the world. The story I now hear is that Liebore has negotiated a new contract with the union at Gosport, where the dockyard workers now work 9 a.m. to 5 p.m., five days a week. Back in the time of the Falklands, the workers prepared the fleet 24 hours a day, seven days a week. I suppose we better hope that any war breaks out during working hours.

Here’s an interesting little thing I read this week: Britain’s most stolen car last year was the Ford Fiesta, with 3,511 being stolen. It’s not that it’s the most popular because it is the easiest to steal or because it fetches a lot of money and is shipped abroad like many expensive cars. The simple reason it is the most stolen is that there are so many on the country’s roads, so it is hardly surprising. In total, over 55,000 cars were stolen in the U.K. last year. But more than twice as many Fiestas were taken compared to the second most stolen, the Volkswagen Golf, with 1,625.

Delighted to see that the Maggie Oliver Foundation has won its court case for a judicial review of the government’s failure to implement the actions recommended in the Jay Report on child abuse. I am a little worried that Maggie Oliver’s small charity will run out of money before the government can be bothered to undertake the recommendations.

I read that Russia is in a bit of a nasty financial position. It has been spending a vast amount of money on the war in Ukraine while telling the population that all is well financially. But little things seem to indicate there are problems. The continual Ukrainian attacks on infrastructure are beginning to tell, not only on the economy, but also on Russia’s ability to supply its front-line troops with sufficient fuel. In the last week, the Ukrainians have attacked several refineries, set a huge liquefied natural gas tanker alight, and destroyed fertiliser plants. But perhaps the most significant news is that massive Moscow City Council is to make one in eight of its employees redundant. The reason given is that tax receipts in the city are well below those budgeted for. The city had been told they would take 8.5% more than last year but are receiving only 2% more, which is causing a massive problem.

That’s me finished for the week and time for a snooze. It’s not very nice this afternoon; it’s overcast, but at least it’s not raining. I think I might try the windmill this afternoon. The atmosphere in No. 10 is awful, so a bit of fresh air is welcome. Chat to you all again next week.
 

© WorthingGooner 2026