Larry’s Diary, week Three Hundred And Sixteen

Monday

Good morning, my friends. When I retired to my cat basket last night it was raining, but this morning it has stopped and I even saw a bit of sunshine when I popped out. I wonder how long it will last. I would bet it rains later today, it always does.

This morning I hear that the Bank of England has issued new dress code rules that allow people to cross-dress in the office, claiming that it is following equality law. I don’t know about you, but I find it rather unsettling to see a bearded man wearing a dress and high heels.

An interesting story emerged from the Sunday Times yesterday about the Liebore think tank, “Labour Together”. The supposedly independent group was once run by Morgan McSweeney and was responsible for the campaign that got Legohead elected leader of the party. However, a while ago a Times Newspapers investigation revealed that Labour Together had not disclosed all the political donations it had received. This does not seem to have gone down well with Labour Together, which the paper now says spent £36,000 hiring an agency to write smears about the two journalists who ran the investigation into them. However, it seems to have been wasted money, as no one appears to have believed that the two journalists were Russian agents.

News this morning that judges have ruled that illegal immigrants are entitled to compensation for the authorities taking their mobile phones when crossing the Channel in small boats. The going amount seems to be £6,500 per person. I understand that the award is being made under the ECHR rules on the right to a normal and family life. Does this mean that it is everyone’s right to have a mobile phone? From what I understand, when an undocumented immigrant arrives an attempt is made to discover their identity, who they paid to cross the Channel and what their intentions are in the UK, and for this a search of their phones is essential.

An amazing story this afternoon. As you are probably aware, Liebore had agreed to the cancellation of over 30 local elections in May. The elections were to be in all sorts of county and borough councils, but most of them were Liebore councils. Then Reform announced that they were taking the Government to court to stop this ban, and the case was to be heard later this week, with Reform saying that their legal advice was that they had an excellent chance of winning. Over the weekend the Electoral Commission announced that the Government had no good reason for postponing the elections. Then early this afternoon Nigel Farage shared a letter from a government lawyer that revealed that, following legal advice, the Government had decided not to cancel the elections, was withdrawing from the court case and paying Reform UK’s costs, believed to be well over £250,000. Clearly the advice had said the Government was going to lose in court as the ban was illegal, and they have made yet another U-turn. A clear win for Reform.

The City of London planning committee has given Network Rail planning permission to redevelop Britain’s busiest railway station. At the moment over 100 million people a year use London’s Liverpool Street, and that is only expected to increase. In fact, predictions say that the number will double by 2040, and Network Rail says that the station simply cannot handle that number, so they want to redevelop it. Quite sensible, you would think, and I hear the plans include more and wider stairs, level access where possible, new lifts for the disabled, new escalators and, of course, new shops and restaurants, lots of new shops. The plan is sensible but needs funds which Network Rail does not have. So, the £1 billion scheme includes an enormous office block built over the station, and it is this block that passengers are objecting to.

On the day it emerged that we are considering bringing forward our increase to 3% in defence spending, I hear that the French are looking at an interim solution to their long-distance artillery problem. They currently use a small number of outdated American M270 rocket launchers and are working on developing their own Long Range Land Strike System, with an initial range of 150 km increasing to over 1,000 km, but it is not expected to be in service until the mid-2030s. In the meantime, France has been looking at several foreign systems. They have been considering the US HIMARS and Israel’s PULS, but I understand they are close to ordering the South Korean K239 Chunmoo system that has already been ordered by several European nations, including Norway, Estonia and Poland.

Last week I told you about the Rolls-Royce Trent 1000XE, their new “production standard” engine for the 787. I learn that its launch has had a bit of a knock-on effect at Boeing. Many years ago, Northwest Airlines had an order for Boeing 787s, and this included one of the earliest Boeing-assembled planes that was being used for testing. Northwest merged with Delta and the 787 order was cancelled, so the plane remained with Boeing, which continued to use it as a development and test aircraft, and it is this plane that was used to flight-test the Trent 1000XE. Now testing is over, the plane is being scrapped.

Tuesday

Hi folks, a sunny morning but still not very warm, and for once there is no rain forecast in London today. Yesterday at 12:39 Legohead was on Radio 2, promising that there would be no more U-turns. Then at 14:20 the Government announced the U-turn on the spring local elections. Well, that promise lasted an hour and forty-one minutes. I think that is a new record for Legohead.

The lead story on the radio, as I ate my Felix, was that unemployment is at 5.2%, its highest for five years. This is supposed to be the Government of the workers but is really the Government for the shirkers, as there are millions signing on and millions more not even bothering to look for work. The UK economy is a disaster.

Two Chagos Islands storylines this morning, neither of which is good news for Legohead. Firstly, I hear a small party of British Chagosians has landed back on one of the outer islands, not Diego Garcia. Will the Government resort to using force to remove them, and all the bad publicity that would bring? As residents, they also have the right to self-determination under UN law, so it all gets a bit murky. The second story is that the Law of the Sea Treaty, which the Government has said we could be sued under, has a get-out clause for military bases. The minister gave this as the reason for the give-away to the House of Commons. I wonder if MPs will claim they were misled and that the vote should be voided.

I read that India is likely to sign the long-expected order for 114 Rafale fighter jets this week, while President Macaroon is on a visit to India. As I hear it, only 20 of this order will be made in France, where Dassault has only been making around 40 of the planes per year. The idea is to build a plant to assemble the rest in India. However, this is a problem in itself, as the plan is only for 80% of the plane to be made in India. So Dassault still needs to improve production in France. There are another couple of things that could still muddy the waters. I hear that in addition to the 114-plane order, India is also looking at ordering an additional 31 Rafale M, the maritime version, for its carriers. Where these would be built and when they would be delivered is not clear. There is another problem in that Ukraine is said to be negotiating a 100-plane order for Rafale, in addition to its 150-plane order for the Saab Gripen. Will Ukraine be willing to accept a long delay in receiving an order for Rafale, or will Dassault look at setting up a production line in Ukraine?

I hear that over the weekend the cruise ship Celebrity Infinity lost electrical power in the Mediterranean and had to be towed into Piraeus in the middle of the night. Although it has not been officially admitted, passengers said they had been woken by announcements of the code “Bravo” over the Tannoy. Apparently, “Bravo” is the code for a shipboard fire. There was no lighting, air conditioning or working toilets, so the cruise finished a day early and all passengers were disembarked. The ship was supposed to leave on a 14-night cruise the following day, but it has been cancelled. Passengers have received a 100% refund, 100% future cruise credit and payment towards out-of-pocket travel and hotel expenses.

Excuse me for being a silly old cat, but I do not understand a statement in Parliament by Defence Minister Luke Pollard. He recently answered a question by saying that we are exploring exporting the Challenger 3 tank and are in discussions with countries that cannot be named for commercial reasons. However, Challenger 3 tanks are manufactured by remaking old Challenger 2 tanks. Only three countries operate the Challenger 2, the UK, Oman and Ukraine, which we gave old tanks to. So, unless we are looking at converting and selling some of the Challenger 2 tanks we are putting into storage, the only people who could be interested are Ukraine and Oman. I somehow cannot see Ukraine giving us back the tanks we gave them to have them upgraded. That leaves only Oman, and if I can work that out, so can anyone else.

The car maker Stellantis has recently had to take a $26.5 billion write-down on EVs. The company, which makes big-name brands such as Peugeot, Fiat, Jeep, Citroën and Vauxhall, had planned to sell only EVs in Europe by 2030 but is having a major rethink because EV sales are so poor. Instead, it is reintroducing the sale of diesel cars in the UK, although it never stopped selling diesel vans. An announcement has said that Vauxhall will reintroduce diesel models, and I also hear that Peugeot will be reintroducing a 206 diesel hatchback.

Wednesday

Good morning, everyone. It was not very nice when I went out before breakfast, it was overcast with a cold breeze. I listened to the weather forecast and news on the radio as I ate my Felix, and I hear that it is going to be dry this morning but wet this afternoon. But for the first time in months, I also heard some good news for Legohead, the official inflation rate fell to 3% in January.

Yesterday there was a big Reform UK press conference where the first four shadow ministers were announced, and I cannot say I was terribly surprised. There are not a lot of people at the top of the Reform party to choose from. However, it was the questions from the press afterwards that amused me. Many of the questions did not need to be asked as they had been answered previously in the earlier speeches. Others asked why other Reform MPs had not been given a post, but again Farage said that more posts were still to come. Any bets on Lee Anderson being Chief Whip?

I hear that Transport for London has asked for bids from private companies to upgrade the Bakerloo line to prepare it for new rolling stock. The upgrades include the reconstruction of the Bakerloo train depot at Stonebridge Park and an enlarged overnight “stabling” facility at Queen’s Park. The work is scheduled to start in July 2027 and finish by 2035 at the earliest. This seems to indicate that new stock is not planned for the line before 2035. The stock currently used on the Bakerloo line is the oldest on the London Underground, having been supplied in 1972.

A Ukrainian drone operator piloted his drone into what he had been told was a Russian logistics hub, 15 km behind the Donbas front line. He was expecting to see armoured vehicles or ammunition, at the very least fuel, but he found none of these. Instead, he found four old Lada cars, three motorbikes and two horses. Is this how far the Russian military has fallen, or was it a farmer’s stash? As locals had been banished from the area, it could indeed have been a logistics hub.

Another story about Ukraine says that in the last few days Ukraine has taken back nearly 300 square kilometres. This is a larger area than the Russians have claimed to have taken since Christmas. Now I have no way of knowing if this is true or just Ukrainian propaganda, but I do hear that Russia is struggling to communicate with its front-line troops since Musk cut their access to Starlink. The problem with the Russian military is that their field commanders are controlled by central command and are not allowed to make decisions, only to implement central orders. Therefore, losing contact with central control is a disaster. Is this what is being reported?

I do not know if these two events are linked, but they could be. On the day when Arsenal announced that one of their star players, Bukayo Saka, had signed a new five-year contract said to be worth over £300,000 per week, or £15.6 million a year, ticket prices went up. The annual announcement of ticket prices confirmed that tickets for next season will be going up by an average of 3.6%, or about £2 a match. That £15.6 million has to be found somewhere.

In the US, Boeing has a new problem, its T-7A Red Hawk jet trainer. Boeing won the competition to develop and manufacture the new jet to replace the old T-36 trainer. The new jet has a modern digital specification, making it better suited for preparing pilots to fly digital aircraft, like the F-35, than the 1960s vintage analogue T-36. However, Boeing was awarded a $9.2 billion fixed-price development contract and at the moment they are losing around $2 billion. It seems that they have had some serious problems, including ejection-seat redesign work and the slowness of software and training-system integration. Not only that, but the programme is also running late and the unit cost is above that expected. Why should we be concerned about this plane being built for the US Air Force? Well, it is this jet that is the favourite to become the RAF’s replacement for the BAE Hawk jet trainer.

Thursday

Hello folks, it was not raining when I trudged to the bottom of the extremely soggy garden. Back for my Felix, my feeder had the radio on and I hear that Legohead appears to have once again gone against advice and appointed Dame Antonia Romeo as Cabinet Secretary, the UK’s top civil servant. As far as I hear it, she was appointed mainly because she is a woman. I wonder how long it will be before this comes back to bite him in the bum.

Breaking news this morning is that Thames Valley Police arrived at Randy Andy’s home and he has been arrested on suspicion of “Misconduct in Public Office” (MiPO), on his 66th birthday. I am led to believe that MiPO is a very serious common law offence and can, in the most serious cases, lead to a sentence of life imprisonment. However, I also hear that it is very hard to prove beyond doubt, which is what is required for someone to be found guilty of it. There are usually over 100 people a year arrested for the offence but only about 20% are found guilty, due to the vagueness of the law and the need to prove that the person acted “wilfully”. Obviously Andy has only been arrested and, as I dictate this, not charged. He must be considered not guilty.

Restore Britain yesterday proudly announced that seven Reform councillors on Kent County Council had joined them. However, a deeper investigation into the story reveals that six of the seven were thrown out of Reform several months ago for various offences, including allegations of misconduct from “several women”, “undermining the interests of the party”, and “a pattern of dishonest and deceptive behaviour which Reform UK will not tolerate”. So these were ex-Reform councillors, and I hope Restore appreciates what they are taking on.

I had hoped that with the Scottish ferry Glen Sannox handed over to its operator and its sister ship Glen Rosa due to be finished this summer, the whole sorry saga was coming to an end. However, this morning I learn I was wrong. In service, Glen Sannox has developed several problems that need to be fixed quickly, as it is currently out of service. But there is no stock of spare parts. So where to get the spares? Well, the answer is obvious, strip them out of the Glen Rosa. This means that the Scottish Government has said that the Rosa is going to be delayed another six months. That means it is going to be over eight years late. If you were buying that ferry, would you want an eight-year-old ship that is supposed to be new? I am beginning to doubt that Glen Rosa will ever enter service.

Still in Scotland, I hear the SNP Government has had another slap in the face this morning. Back in 2020 the Scottish Borders Council turned down a plan to build a wind farm near the village of Heriot in the Moorfoot Hills, southeast of Edinburgh. The plan was twice revised and twice more refused. So the company that wanted to build it appealed to the Government, which appointed a Reporter, the equivalent of a planning inspector, to look into the project. He recommended approval and in January 2025 planning permission was granted. However, the owner of a farm close to the proposed wind farm hired legal representation and appealed to the highest Scottish appeals court. Today the appeal court ruled that the approval had breached the law and withdrew planning permission.

Spain has just placed a massive order for military helicopters with Airbus. The order is for 100 helicopters and will cost about €4 billion. It is divided between four different helicopter types for various uses. Firstly, there are 13 H135 helicopters for the Air Force, 12, and the Navy, one. This type is used for training and basic missions. The Spanish Army is to receive 50 H145M helicopters, which will become their workhorse. Then there is an order for six H175M helicopters that will be used for VIP transport. Finally, there are 32 NH90 helicopters that will be used by the Army, 13, the Air Force, 12, and the Navy, six. This is a twin-engine, medium-lift helicopter that is already in use by Spanish forces. By concentrating on an all-Airbus fleet, the military expects to save money on spare parts and training and to have better availability.

Today there is to be a meeting involving most of the British banks, the Link ATM network and some building societies, with the idea of investigating the setting up of a national credit card system. At the moment about 95% of the nation’s dealings on credit and debit cards are handled by American-owned Visa and Mastercard. Banks are a little worried that we have all our eggs in one financial basket and that we are very vulnerable to possible sanctions. When Russia was sanctioned by the US, Visa and Mastercard had about 60% of the Russian plastic card business, and the sanctions caused chaos. It is this sort of situation the banks want to avoid, and they are also talking to European banks about them joining in. I wonder what they would call the system.

Friday

Hi everyone, a little damp this morning but at least it is not pouring with rain yet, and it is a tad warmer out today. I have just seen a picture of the Andrew who used to be Prince, slumped in the back of a car after being released by Thames Valley Police. I do not know what they did to him during those 12 hours in custody, but gosh, he looked terrible. They probably tortured him with mugs of builder’s tea and doorstep bacon sarnies laced with HP sauce. No Earl Grey in porcelain cups or crustless cucumber sandwiches in the nick. It must have been awful for the poor soul.

For my first story of the day, I bring you the news that the number of people being arrested as paedophiles is increasing at an ever-growing rate. In recent times it has leapt to around 1,000, mostly men, a month. In fact, I hear that in one week in January just past there were 253 arrests alone. This number has been going up steeply over the past few years and I have been wondering why. I have come to the conclusion that the problem lies with the fact that first offenders who do not actually take part in person-to-person offences do not go to prison for first offences. Like Huw Edwards, it seems that you can have hundreds, if not thousands, of explicit images on your phone or computer and only get a suspended sentence. I am not sure how this can be right. When people get prison terms for hurty words, these monsters get away with a slap on the wrist.

Last night The Donald said that the Chagos deal is a “big mistake” and should be cancelled. Some time ago Legohead said that if The Donald came out against the deal he would cancel it. I am looking forward to yet another U-turn. I wonder how long Legohead will hang on before he backs down again.

An interesting ruling by the Supreme Court about how damages can be claimed against the NHS for children suffering birth injuries. In the past, when a baby suffered, say, brain damage at birth due to NHS negligence, the damages were calculated on how long the child was expected to live. In the test case, a baby girl suffered brain damage due to hospital negligence, and the compensation was based on what she might have earned up to her predicted death, due to the injury, at 29. However, the Supreme Court has just ruled that the compensation should actually be based on how long the baby would have lived if she had not been brain damaged. This could mean living to 80 or 90 and means extra costs of billions for the NHS and, of course, this means you, the taxpayer.

I see that the Norwegians have just discovered another big oil and gas deposit in their sector of the North Sea. This big find is close to the border with our sector, which Red Ed Millipede insists has run out of reserves and where exploration has been stopped. I think the Norwegians have just proved this to be rubbish. In fact, I hear they export £40 billion worth of oil and gas a year and put the money into a sovereign wealth fund to invest for the day oil and gas run out. We could be doing exactly the same thing if we were not driven by Millipede’s ideology and refusing to drill in the North Sea or frack on land.

In Tonbridge, in Kent, two neighbours have both been fined £300 each for littering. However, it seems that the contractor employed by the local council may have overstepped the mark. What the ladies had done was leave charity collection bags outside their homes, and the contractor issued them with fines. In fact, one of the ladies, aged 82, was threatened with a further fine for “obstructing the footpath”. The council says it is investigating whether the contractor acted properly. I wonder how long this will take.

News reaches me that Rheinmetall Real Estate Telford has put an application for planning permission into Telford and Wrekin Council to make alterations to what was the GKN Sankey factory. Apparently Rheinmetall, the German armaments company, purchased the old factory with the intention of turning it over to large-calibre gun barrel production. I hear the application includes new flues and ductwork to the old two-storey building, along with external air source heat pumps, a new 2.5m perimeter fence, gates and bollards. Rheinmetall says the new high fence is required for security and that the factory will employ 400 people.

Saturday

Morning, my friends, dull and grey but not wet or cold this morning. Is Legohead going to do another U-turn, this time on Chagos? It looks highly likely, as MPs have written to Mr Squeaker about being misled by a government minister. The Donald has told him to walk away from the deal and the Bill is paused in the ping-pong between the Lords and the Commons. On top of that, the Chagosians on an outer island have got an injunction preventing them from being thrown off by the local police. It looks like another climbdown is coming.

News has emerged from the NHS that there is a shortage of medical bone cement. It seems Heraeus Medical, the German company that supplies 90% of the cement that the NHS uses in hip and knee replacement operations, has had a serious packaging problem and has had to halt production at its main factory. It is expected that it will be at least two months before stocks are back to normal. In the meantime, the NHS is stopping routine operations and what stock it has will be used for priority cases such as accidents and falls. The NHS also says it will be using non-cemented options where possible. I only hope not too many people have to wait in pain.

What is happening to the European aircraft project, the Future Combat Air System (FCAS)? This week the German Chancellor has said that Germany is not interested in buying the plane being designed by the Dassault/Airbus consortium, which could be fatal for the project. The problem is that the French want a plane capable of delivering nuclear weapons, something that the Germans do not need or want, and this adds complexity and cost to the programme. Yesterday Airbus suggested that it would be better off building its own aircraft for Germany and junior partner Spain, leaving France to do its own thing. Personally, I think Airbus should join the Anglo, Italian and Japanese project, which is already further down the route to the sort of plane the Germans are looking for.

On the day after BAE announced that they had sufficient Typhoon orders booked to keep production going until Tempest production takes over, I hear that the consortium’s Italian partner has offered the Philippines 36 Tranche 5 Typhoons for their air defence requirements. The partner nations in the consortium that builds the Typhoon are each free to pursue export sales and, in this case, the Italian partner, Leonardo, is heading the bid. However, the planes are made by all the partners, with, for example, the forward fuselage and cockpit made by BAE, the main fuselage and starboard wing by Germany and the port wing and tail made in Italy. So whoever gets the order, all the partners profit. I seem to remember that last year I read that the partners believe there is still strong worldwide demand for the Typhoon and that the consortium is building up from production of 25 aircraft a year to 50 a year.

Do you remember how, when Liebore came to power back in July 2024, they promised to build 1.5 million houses over the life of the Parliament? The question is, how is it going? The answer is terribly. Obviously, at the time, nobody bothered to look at what building that many houses meant practically. It comes to 822 houses every day of the year, including Saturdays, Sundays and bank holidays, and Liebore is not getting anywhere near that number built. In fact, house completions are the lowest in 12 years. How did Liebore not see this coming?

When work began on Hinkley Point C nuclear power station back in 2016, it was planned to go into operation in 2025, but it has been obvious for some time that it was going to miss that target. Years have been added to that first unit in-service date and billions to its costs several times and, until yesterday, the date had reached 2029 and the cost £34 billion, based on 2015 prices. That changed yesterday when EDF announced another year’s delay and another £1 billion in 2015 prices. So we are now looking at the first unit going online in 2030 and it costing nearer £50 billion in current prices. What a mess.

I hear that Ukrainian frontline soldiers have added a new piece of equipment to their kit, a pair of scissors. Why, you might ask? Well, it is all to do with drone warfare. As the use of drones in the Ukraine, Russian conflict has become more and more common, so has the practice of electronic jamming and countermeasures. Consequently, many of the drones now trail a fine, lightweight fibre-optic cable for control and reporting, a cable that cannot be jammed. I hear that in some places the battlefield is covered in these “wires”. The front-line troops have no idea if the cable is working, long abandoned, or if it is one of theirs or one of the enemy’s, so the safest thing to do is simply pull out your scissors and snip the cable.

That is me finished for the week and, as usual, I am off for my afternoon snooze. It is not raining but the forecast says it is coming. So I think I will aim for a nap in my basket today, it is by a lovely warm radiator. Chat to you all again next week.
 

© WorthingGooner 2026