Larry’s Diary, Week Three Hundred And Twenty-Eight

Monday

Good morning, my friends, from a warm but cloudy Downing Street. After last week’s disastrous by-election for the Government, Legohead has spent the weekend struggling to come to terms with things. He seems to be delusional. He has been busy planning a reset speech as if nothing has happened. He is speaking at 10am, so I’ll report later.

Over the weekend, Legohead was asked what he dreamed about. He replied that he didn’t dream. Well, that explains a lot. Everyone dreams, it’s a way of the brain clearing out the rubbish. Even I dream about being young again and those sunny days when Cameroon was PM. So, I have concluded that Legohead is a robot, his delivery gives it away, and he is switched off while plugged in for a recharge overnight.

I hear that there are more problems looming for Dave the Green. It seems that he has been boasting on his campaign website that he was “currently working at the Ministry of Justice on their training and diversity programmes”. However, the Ministry of Justice says they have no record of him ever working for them. How many more lies are going to come out about the man, who I just heard called Walter Titty.

Apparently, the Sun has been sitting on a story about Dave the Green and his mum because of election purdah. But since Polling Day, they have still been sitting on it due to rumoured pressure from the owner. The story, as I hear it, is that for many years now Dave’s mum has worked in the sex industry. Could this be the reason why he is keen for a future Green Government to legalise prostitution.

Well, Legohead’s reset speech was a big fat nothing burger, and the delivery was awful as he read it all off the autocue. He came up with only one hard thing. There is going to be legislation in Parliament this week to allow him to nationalise British Steel. This is something Reform asked for a year ago when Scunthorpe was on the verge of collapse. I suppose it’s better late than never. Apart from that, he insulted Nigel Farage, calling him a grifter. He insulted all the ex-Red Wall seat voters, calling them extreme right wing. He repeated that the EU was the answer to everything, insulted Brexiteers, and said he is not going to resign, insulting the general public who know he is the worst PM in history.

Legohead said nothing to suggest that he has any idea how to fix any of the problems the country is facing, unemployment, immigration, the NHS, the cost of living, or the cost of fuel for your car or heating your home. We are just expected to carry on under the highest tax bill in history. Consequently, I wonder if he has done enough to see off a challenge to his leadership. Maybe for a short time, but he is a dead man walking.

I watched Arsenal just get over the line yesterday and edge closer to being Premier League champions. Then this morning, I watched a video that suggested that, win or lose, they are likely to top the table as the wealthiest football club in Britain. They are into the final of the Champions League and have already won £174 million from that source alone. Last year, they won £171.5 million by coming second in the Premier League, and if they finish first, they will win even more. Last year, the club earned around £467 million when considering all sources of income, like gate money, food sold at the stadium, and sponsorships. The British clubs above Arsenal in earnings last year have all slipped a bit this year because they were knocked out of the Champions League earlier. I will keep an eye on the end-of-year money tables.

Tuesday

Hi folks, it was a little chilly this morning when I went out, even if it was bright and sunny. Legohead’s speech yesterday doesn’t seem to have gone down well with the Government MPs, with 83 of them already saying this morning that he should resign. He was still flapping about, plotting with his old pal Lord Harmer, when I retired to my cat basket last night. I hear that four leading Cabinet ministers have told him privately that he should go but have not yet come out in public. The Cabinet meeting today should be interesting. Last night, Legohead said he was resistant to all calls for him to resign.

I hear that among the people who came out in favour of Legohead quitting, there were six PPSs who have resigned their posts. All six were replaced last night, but I understand that at least half of the new PPSs are Wes Streeting supporters. Is this a bit of an own goal? I understand that the Whips’ Office has been phoning MPs who have come out against Legohead and telling them that if they force him out, he will call a General Election and they will all lose their jobs. This is an absolute mess and needs a General Election to sort it out.

It seems that Eurostar is a little worried about the competition coming from Virgin now they have space in the London sidings and are preparing to run a mirror service to Paris, and then Brussels and Amsterdam. But Virgin have announced plans to run services to Frankfurt and Cologne, and to expand services in Britain to start from Birmingham, Manchester and even Glasgow. So what is Eurostar’s response? Apparently, they have agreed with Swiss and French railways to run services to Basel, Geneva and Zurich, but not until 2030.

This morning’s Cabinet meeting seems to have broken up with Legohead telling the assembled ministers that, despite them wanting him to quit, he was going nowhere. Which leaves the question, how long can he hang on, and who will be next to resign? I hear of big moves this morning. Communities Minister Miatta Fahnbulleh became the first minister to resign. Old-fashioned lefty John MacDonnell said that if Wes Streeting were to become PM, the left of the party would have him out in less time than Liz Truss. I hear the meeting started with Legohead reading out a statement saying he had no intention of resigning, and he moved the meeting on to the Iran war before anyone else could speak. I now understand that Wes Streeting walked out and refused to talk to the press.

The high-ups in the Royal Navy have decided that the top two buttons on a female officer’s No. 1 uniform jacket are inappropriately positioned and must be moved. The two buttons in question are for decoration only, serve no actual function, and could easily be removed, just as they are on Petty Officers’ and Warrant Officers’ uniform jackets. But, being the Navy, that would be too easy. Instead, all 850 female officers are to be issued new No. 1 uniform jackets, with the four rows of buttons lowered so that the top row no longer emphasises the officer’s breasts. When the Navy is reportedly short of money, you would think they could find a better way to spend what little they do have.

Another day, another problem for Dave the Green. This time, it emerges that he hasn’t been paying council tax while living on a barge. Over the years, he has often posted pictures of this rented barge on the internet. Now it appears he has admitted to the Times that he hasn’t been “paying the appropriate council tax” and is “making arrangements” to pay off back taxes. If you didn’t pay your council tax, your council would take you to court, not talk to you about paying the back tax you owe. How can this man survive as the leader of a political party when he so regularly lies about his past employment, makes outlandish and wrong statements, and doesn’t pay his council tax?

M&S seems to be one of the few British retailers to be expanding. They have been on the march, opening many more food-only shops that sell their full range of food. But that’s not all. I hear it is their aim to double their online sales of fashion, home and beauty products. A couple of weeks back, they offered a lifeline to struggling River Island by offering to sell their products on M&S.com, following the closure of all 33 of the River Island outlets. Now I hear they are buying the massive 437,000 sq. ft ASOS warehouse in Lichfield, Staffordshire. ASOS heavily cut back on use of the facility in early 2023 in a bid to cut costs due to dwindling sales. Now M&S are to pay £66 million to take over the lease and pay the £6 million a year rent. The idea is to give them the space to increase their online range of goods and sizes, and to be able to supply items more quickly. The new warehouse will offer 600 jobs to the people of Lichfield.

Wednesday

Good morning, everyone. It’s sunshine and showers this morning, and a lot cooler. I have a tale to relate about yesterday’s Cabinet meeting. It seems my story of yesterday was only partly right. Legohead did indeed read out a prepared statement saying he wasn’t resigning before moving on to Iran, where he read out another statement, not allowing any discussion. Then he did the same for every topic on the agenda before saying, “If anyone wants to talk to me privately, they can come and see me”, then walking out. I hear Wes Weakling and two other Cabinet members tried to talk to him, but it was impossible to find him as he had gone to visit apprentices at an owl sanctuary in Norfolk. You couldn’t make it up.

The disaster for Liebore continues, as Legohead continues to stick his head in the sand and ignore events unfolding around him. Yesterday, Legohead is understood to have said that “it’s only 80 out of the 400 Liebore MPs”. But it seems to be a planned series of resignations and letters of non-support from MPs. It now appears to be well planned, with at least one an hour joining the anti-Legohead ranks. The number of resigning ministers is growing, and surely it is only a matter of time before Secretaries of State go, to be swiftly followed by Legohead himself.

This week, the “Rolls Royce” of opinion polls, YouGov, has Reform on 28%, 11% ahead of the Tories in second place, something that has never happened before. A lead by 11% has not been unknown in the so-called “lesser polls”, like More in Common, Find Out Now or Opinium, but not since February and never by YouGov. The “serious” political reporters always look to YouGov as the most accurate of pollsters and dismiss the lesser polls as not to be believed. I wonder what they will say about this one, which, according to the Electoral Calculus predictor, gives Reform a majority of 94 seats.

I read that Greggs are to make a return to overseas bakeries with a new outlet at Tenerife South Airport. Back in 2008, Greggs closed its outlets in Belgium. Apparently, the Belgian people weren’t as keen on sausage rolls and steak bakes as us Brits. This is a problem the new Tenerife branch is unlikely to have, as 50% of the annual 13 million holidaymakers who use the airport are British. But I hear that, along with sausage rolls and steak bakes, they will be offering Spanish food. The announcement I saw said they would be offering Spanish omelette rolls.

In Walton, Somerset, a large sinkhole has appeared in a rural road called Butleigh Moor Drove. Somerset County Council hired a company called Stabilised Pavements to fix the sinkhole. When a big lorry from the company arrived on site, it drove up to the hole and the road collapsed under its weight, revealing that the hole was much bigger than expected and some of the road was just a shell over the sinkhole. Unfortunately, the depth of the hole has caused the truck to tilt over at about 45° and for it to get stuck in the hole, blocking the road. The council is believed to be pondering how to recover the truck without causing more damage.

Over the weekend, I hear that Disney cancelled a cruise out of Singapore at the last minute. The Disney Destiny had boarded 7,600 passengers for a three-night cruise when the ship’s captain had to announce the cruise’s cancellation due to mechanical problems. The whole affair must have cost Disney a small fortune, as they have had to refund 100% of the fares and have also given passengers a 50% future cruise credit. On top of that, they have put passengers into overnight hotel accommodation and paid travel expenses. Fortunately for Disney, it seems that the mechanical problems were fixed in time for the next three-night cruise yesterday.

The rumour reaches me of a fudge of the BBC TV licence dilemma. For years, the BBC has been losing licence payers and, consequently, billions of pounds, with many people giving up watching the BBC and switching to on-demand services like Netflix and Amazon, which don’t need a licence. The current funding settlement expires in 2027, and the Government has been looking at ways to fund the BBC going forward. Should they renew the funding settlement and let the BBC carry on as now? Should it be turned into a company based on an advertising model like ITV? Or should it become a scrambled pay-to-view service like Netflix or Amazon? Well, I hear that the Government now favours making a licence necessary for all forms of broadcast TV, whether over the air or internet, meaning that you will need a licence to watch Netflix, and all the money will go straight to the BBC.

Thursday

Hello folks, it’s cloudy this morning, with rain by my lunchtime Felix. With the King’s Speech yesterday, I understand that the pro and anti Legohead sides agreed to put a hold on hostilities for the day out of respect for the King. Well, today the truce is over, so it’s back to all-out warfare this morning. I shall be doing my best to keep everyone up to date with developments.

It looks like Wes Weakling is going to resign today and start the PM race. I hear all sorts of interesting things. The Ginger Growler has paid off her tax debts and is cleared to run. Mascara Man is said to have found a seat where the sitting MP is willing to stand aside for him. The Under Secretary of State for Defence, Alistair Carns, ex-SAS and an MC, is said to be considering running. Ed Millipede’s wife doesn’t want him to run, but he does. I wonder who else will put their head above the parapet.

Talking of the King’s Speech, I learn that King Big Ears wasn’t happy with the first draft of the speech he was sent by the Government writers. Apparently, he returned it to them with a few alterations pencilled in the margin. Whether the changes were accepted is not known. But we live in a constitutional monarchy, and the King has no choice but to do the will of the Government. Mind you, I would rather have liked it if he had slipped in a few jokes.

More pressure on Legohead, this time from 11 unions, including the big ones Unite, Unison and the GMB, that are all affiliated to the Labour Party. They have written to Legohead, basically telling him to go. These unions are the paymasters of Liebore, and the loss of their financial support could hit Liebore very hard.

I had just finished my Felix lunch when all hell broke out in the office. I crept in and listened to the conversation, where I learnt that Wes Weakling had finally fired the opening shot in the PM wars. It seems he has handed his resignation as Health Secretary to Legohead and called for him to resign. As I write this, he hasn’t yet said he is going to challenge Legohead for the Liebore Party leadership and hence as PM, but I can’t see why he would resign otherwise. I wonder who will be next to reveal their hand.

We all know that Mascara Man is the Mayor of Manchester and wants to be PM. But for him to achieve this aim, he first needs to be an MP. There have been strong rumours that a Northern MP with a 19,000 majority was willing to fall on her sword. But, interestingly, the MP put out a statement late last night that there was no truth in the rumour and she wasn’t going anywhere. For Mascara Man, something must happen quickly and he needs to find somewhere to stand. Then he must get elected, which is not going to be easy. Finally, he must be nominated for PM and elected. And all that assumes that Legohead resigns and Mascara Man’s timetable isn’t too late.

I hear that the largest airline in Africa, Ethiopian Airlines, is in the final stages of negotiating a big order for new planes with Airbus. Ethiopian wants to build up routes between its hubs and second-level cities that don’t have enough passengers to support an aircraft the size of a Boeing 737 or an Airbus A320. For this, they need a smaller aircraft to operate profitably, and if they want to offer passengers a modern jet flight, it will have to be either Airbus A220s or Embraer E195-E2s. Ethiopian is already an Airbus and Boeing operator, but not an Embraer operator. Boeing doesn’t have a 130-seat passenger jet in its catalogue, so that gives Airbus an advantage. From what I hear, the talks with Airbus centre on five Airbus A350s, they already have 33, and 20 A220 aircraft.

Friday

Hi everyone, it’s sunny and cool out today, with rain after lunch. Legohead has announced Wes Weakling’s replacement at Health, and it is some non-entity who I recognise from the photos, but I don’t know by name, only that he is one of Legohead’s acolytes.

So, Mascara Man is to be gifted a seat in Makerfield, which is split between Greater Manchester and Merseyside. The current MP, Josh Simon, is going to stand aside. Simon is in a bit of trouble as he is implicated in the Britain First fiasco that plotted Legohead’s coronation as Liebore leader. But it’s not as simple as that. Mascara Man must first get the permission of Liebore’s NEC to run. Then he must win the by-election, where Simon only has a 5,399 majority. More than that, at the recent local election, Reform won 24 of the 25 seats locally, with the remaining single seat going to an independent. I suspect the Reform leadership is already planning its election campaign. On top of all that, I hear that Liebore is planning to run Gary Neville as its mayoral candidate. Wouldn’t it be funny if that also went to Reform.

It looks like a big change is coming to ITV. For some time now, ITV has been in talks to sell its UK broadcasting business to Sky and, as I understand it, a deal has been done in principle. Of course, this is not really Sky buying ITV, it is really the American media giant Comcast, who own Sky, and whatever the final deal is, they will have to agree. What I hear is that the intention is for ITV to split up its business, with the broadcasting arm going to Sky, while the ITV company will retain the programme-making side, ITV Studios. However, the problem being worked on currently is a “programme supply agreement”, under which ITV Studios would continue to make the likes of Coronation Street, Emmerdale, The Voice and Love Island for the channel. Another problem is that Sky owns its own programme company, which makes the likes of Bake Off for Channel Four. Will it move to ITV Studios? Then there is the use of ITV’s programme archive. Will it be available to the new ITV or Sky? I don’t think this deal is likely to be announced very soon.

A story reaches me from the USA, where the big airlines are always trying to get one over on their rivals. A while back, Starlink started offering its internet services for cruise ships and aircraft. As I understand it, they have signed up the two big cruise lines, Carnival and Royal Caribbean, and it has been quickly and successfully rolled out to all their ships and their subsidiary companies. It has not been quite the same with the big airlines. Starlink started talks with all the big ones, and some jumped at the chance and are already offering its services onboard, including American Airlines and United Airlines. Even our own BA signed up. OK, it’s not on every plane yet, but we are talking about thousands of planes as opposed to hundreds of ships. But I hear the American number three carrier, Delta, was interested but wanted to rebrand Starlink as its own in-house brand, and when Starlink said “no”, they walked away. In a short time, they have noticed a loss of business class passengers to their rivals, so they have just signed up with the Amazon offering. One big problem remains. Their first plane will not get onboard internet until 2028, by which time their big rivals will have it fleet-wide.

The USA is currently waiting for Boeing to deliver the two Boeing 747-8i aircraft that the US Government has ordered to become the new Presidential transport, Air Force One. These two aircraft were intended for a Russian customer but couldn’t be delivered because of sanctions. But the US Air Force has a big problem, spare parts. The last 747-8i was made in 2017 and sold to Korean Air, so spare parts are no longer in production for the 36 Boeing 747-8i aircraft that were sold to three airlines. Consequently, the US Air Force has been in contact with the three operators of the model, Air China, Korean Air and Lufthansa, and told them they are willing to buy any and all 747-8i planes they want to dispose of and break them up for spare parts.

I learnt today that there was still unfinished business from last week’s local elections. There is still one vote to come, and it is in Bury. The vote here was cancelled because one of the declared candidates died. Under election rules, if a declared candidate dies after nominations have closed, the election is cancelled and rerun at a later date. In this case, it was the Reform candidate who died unexpectedly, so the ward election will now be run on June 18th, and the whole process of the election, from nominations to postal votes, starts over. Mind you, it won’t make any difference to the council in Bury, as it was only electing in thirds and Liebore won enough seats last week to hang on.

Russia has a problem with Crimea. It is slowly being strangled by Ukraine. It all started back near the beginning of the war when Ukraine first hit and damaged the Kerch Straits bridge. It was quickly repaired, and both the rail and road sections were soon back in use. But it was realised that the supply routes into Crimea were vulnerable, so Russia looked at additional methods. They started sending supplies by road and rail through occupied Ukraine along the Black Sea coast, out of range of Ukrainian weapons. Then Ukraine hit the bridge again. This time, the damage was so severe that Russia switched all military supplies to three ferries, as it was thought that military equipment was too heavy for the damaged bridge, so Ukraine destroyed the ferries. They have also destroyed 26 of the 29 oil storage tanks at the one refinery in Crimea. But the final blow has come with the development by Ukraine of long-distance drones capable of taking out trucks and trains as far south as the Black Sea coastline. Now, when Ukraine picks off an air defence system in Crimea, Russia is struggling to replace it, even if they have spares back in Mother Russia.

Saturday

Morning, my friends. It was a sunny stroll to the bottom of the garden this morning, then back for my breakfast. The forecaster on the radio said it is going to be wet this afternoon, so if I want any windowsill time, I had better get on with it. The big rally in London this morning is to “take the kingdom back”, and Legohead has already branded it, and the marchers, as far right and racist. He says he will come down hard on anyone who gets out of line, and the courts are ready to act. I thought the courts were so busy they had to stop jury trials.

I have been looking a little bit deeper into this move to install Mascara Man as the MP for Makerfield, and I can’t help but wonder if he has made a massive mistake, or if it has been a clever bit of manipulation by Legohead. Apparently, Legohead has said that he will not stand in the way of Mascara Man running, as he did at the last by-election that was lost. The argument for banning him was that he would have to stand down as the Mayor of Manchester, and there was a high likelihood of the mayoralty being lost to Reform or the Greens. After the results in the local elections, this looks to be even more likely. In addition, the constituency had one of the heaviest votes for Brexit, and Mascara Man is a rejoiner. I have come to the conclusion that Legohead will not be lifting a finger to help Mascara Man into Parliament. In fact, if he loses the by-election, not only is Mascara Man not a rival for PM, but he is no longer the Mayor of Manchester, as he must stand to run as an MP, and hence no longer has a platform to attack Legohead from.

The Donald’s visit to China has not resulted in the massive order for Boeing aircraft that the US media had been predicting. OK, The Donald was able to announce an order for 200 planes, there are no details yet of the make-up of aircraft types, but it fell well short of the predicted 500. It is only 50 more than last week’s order for 150 Airbus A320 family planes, and it is the first Boeing order from China in 10 years. Twenty years ago, Boeing sold many more aircraft to China than Airbus, but all sorts of things have stood in the way recently, like Taiwan and tariffs. The stock market did not like the size of the order, having already factored in a 500-aircraft order, and Boeing’s share price fell almost 4%.

Still on the subject of aircraft orders, Airbus has announced an order for 15 A350-900s but has not revealed the customer. This happens for all sorts of reasons, including the client not having its finances sorted, politics, or commercial advantage. But most likely, it is a lessor who has not yet tied up where all the planes are going. Of course, there has been speculation on who the customer might be. I have heard various names mentioned, including Malaysian, Pakistan International and Air Canada, but we will just have to wait until Airbus makes its final announcement.

With the end of the football season fast approaching, the usual kerfuffle about who is buying whom is filling the back pages. But I am more interested in the new shirts that are being launched for next season, and just how much they cost. An adult shirt in the same material as the players use will cost about £120 and be covered in sponsors’ advertising, while a replica shirt will cost about £85 and is still covered in advertising, and they sell in hundreds of thousands, if not millions. No wonder the clubs change the design every year and have three or four different kits. But it is how much it costs the sponsors that astounds me. Arsenal have a new sleeve sponsor for next season, office software company Deel, at £18 million a year, plus £25 million in various bonuses. What do they get for that? A small patch on the left-hand sleeve with the company logo on it.

On 31st May, Britain’s biggest private train operator, Govia Thameslink Railway, is being taken into public ownership by the Government. GTR has four operating companies, Southern, Thameslink, Great Northern and Gatwick Express, and accounts for 17% of all train journeys made in the UK each year. But what difference will it make? According to the Government’s propaganda, all the services will remain the same, and the timetable will be the same. Even the ticketing terms and conditions will remain unchanged. The staff will all be moved under TUPE rules to the new publicly owned company, so no change there. So, as far as I can see, the only reason for the change is ideological, and it will cost the public more money.

I hear that MPs on the parliamentary security committee, tasked with reviewing files relating to Peter Mandelson’s appointment as US ambassador, are not happy. They have accused the Government of withholding Mandy’s vetting file from them when they do not have the authority to do so. When the “Humble Address” was passed in February, it was agreed that all security-sensitive documents would go to the Intelligence and Security Committee, as they had the appropriate security clearance. If the Government is not obeying the “Humble Address”, what is the punishment? Could the Government be in contempt of Parliament?

That’s me finished for this amazing week, and I’m off to nap on my windowsill while the sun is still out. But I will need to get into the sheltered corner, as the wind is chilly. No rain yet, but I can smell it in the air, so I’m going to get my fresh air while I can. Chat to you all again next week.

 

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