Larry’s Diary, Week Three Hundred And Forty-Three

Monday

Good morning, my happy readers. I’m afraid it looks like autumn is coming, as the temperature has dropped and the sun has disappeared, and of course, after autumn comes the dreaded winter. I hear Liebore wants to mess with school meals again. This time it’s less meat and fried food, and more lentils, pulses and vegetables. I’m glad I was a home-schooled cat, I couldn’t have eaten lentils. My innards are designed to digest meat.

The big news on Friday was the £36 million donation to Reform, the biggest political donation ever made. Well, on Saturday, Reform’s other big donor, Christopher Harborne, wasn’t to be outdone, and he also gave Reform UK £36 million. This means that in just two days, Reform have received donations totalling £72 million. Of course, both these two donors had previously made big donations. Harborne gave Reform £9 million in 2025 and another £3 million earlier this year. Ben Delo had also made two earlier donations, both of £4 million. The lefty tears have been amazing.

I saw the Ginger Growler on the TV yesterday morning, and gosh, was she not happy about the two donations to Reform. She is talking about changing the law to force Reform to return the money. Unfortunately, this would be a retrospective law and, as I understand it, under the ECHR, retrospective laws are not allowed. But this looks increasingly like spite on the part of Liebore, and they have been taking millions from the unions for years and from big donors like Dale Vince.

There is a meeting in Cardiff today where the Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland ruling parties will discuss independence from the U.K. Basically, what they mean is dumping England, but just how practical is this? All three of these nations are highly subsidised under the Barnett formula and are not financially viable without the money from England. But it doesn’t stop there. They all use the Pound Sterling and would either have to carry on using it under England’s rules, join another currency bloc or invent their own. Then there is Defence. The three can’t rely on the British Army, Navy and Air Force defending them. But perhaps the biggest problem is all the jobs that have been moved to the three nations from the U.K. to support them, like the Royal Mint going to Wales and HMRC having offices in Cardiff, Belfast, Edinburgh and Glasgow. I nearly forgot, the law says that we can’t build warships abroad. We are currently building frigates in Glasgow and Rosyth. I wonder how many jobs they represent.

I understand that the Liebore council in Luton has major problems and that later today the Council will have a vote on ousting the Liebore leader of the council. The election back in May resulted in Liebore being returned as the largest party, but I am hearing the returning leader was told to resign by the regional Labour Party. She did and was replaced by another woman councillor who was imposed by the regional Labour Party. Since then, one Liebore councillor left to become an independent, followed in August by a group of six councillors who left to form an independent group, who were subsequently joined by the other ex-Liebore councillor. That leaves the council with 21 Liebore councillors, 13 Limp Dumps, 7 Independent Alliance, 3 Tories, 1 Reform and the ex-Liebore Leader, who is sitting as an independent. Tonight’s vote could result in a Limp Dump leader taking over.

Talking of votes, tomorrow the threatened Village of Piddington will be holding a long-awaited referendum on leaving the U.K. There is no mechanism for a village to leave the U.K., so the referendum can only be advisory, but if the village does vote to quit the U.K., it is sending a very strong message to the government.

I have told you on several occasions about the success of the SAAB GlobalEye AEW aircraft and wondered if we should have purchased it for our own E3 AWACS replacement. Today I bring you news of the Netherlands signing a Letter of Intent to buy a single new GlobalEye, and to work closely with Sweden, who have three on order. I find it rather strange that so many nations have now rejected the Boeing E7 Wedgetail in favour of the GlobalEye.

Tuesday

Hi folks, fairly bright and dry when I popped out, but not exactly warm. No Mascara Man again today. He never made it yesterday after his father died over the weekend. He had been suffering from Alzheimer’s for some time. Anyway, MM has cancelled all his appointments for yesterday and today. I did hear last week that he wanted to cancel his appearance at tomorrow’s PMQs. I suppose he now has a good excuse.

The row over the £72 million going to Reform continues. The Ginger Growler seems to be leading the government’s attack, making a speech at the TUC Congress yesterday. She called the two Reform donors “Fascist Oligarchs”. I’m afraid she has produced rather an odd description there, which I just don’t think is a thing. Still, she didn’t exactly have a standard education.

Ginge and Whinge have pulled their two kids out of their prep school after just two days. The reason they gave was that their security detail wasn’t happy. It appears that the journey to school was taking 45 minutes through heavy traffic and the chase car had got separated. This makes me ask a lot of questions. Did the couple not visit the school before enrolling the children? Did they not try a test run? Is there a real threat to the children? William and Catherine’s children have been driven to school for years and the media leave them alone, so why are these two different? But what I really want to know is, are they subject to the £60 fine for missing school?

I am delighted to see that the Government has finally announced that it is going to properly equip its five Type 31 frigates with Mk 41 vertical launch cells, Naval Strike Missiles and special programmable ammunition for its single Bofors 57mm gun and two 40mm guns. However, there is no acknowledgement of the number of vertical launch cells, but the ship is designed to take 32 cells amidships and/or 16 forward of the bridge. Also, the number of missiles to be purchased is unknown. There is also a small problem with the programmable ammunition. The two sizes of ammunition are programmed as they leave the barrel to determine whether the round being fired should be one of six modes, ranging from high explosive to proximity fused. The Navy has already secured several thousand practice rounds from a Swedish manufacturer, who is currently licensed by BAE subsidiary Bofors, but the RN wants to go out to tender for its full purchase, and at the moment there is only the one licensed manufacturer.

Yesterday, the Village of Piddington welcomed some female MPs to the village to see and talk about the migrant camp. They invited every single woman MP, but only four turned up. Two came from the Tory ranks. They have a total of 29 female MPs. The other two came from Reform, and they only have two female MPs. None came from the Limp Dump, with 32 female MPs, Labour, with 263 female MPs, or the Green Party, with four female MPs, which tells a lot.

Russia has been using the Kh-47M2 Kinzhal hypersonic missile against Ukraine but has had problems. The Mach 10 missile was initially very successful and was almost impossible to intercept due to its high speed and coming straight down. But I hear Ukraine has found a solution so good that Russia has stopped production of the missiles and diverted its funding elsewhere. What Ukraine discovered was that the missile was subject to electronic interference in its attack dive and that a minor deflection off course, just 2°, put so much stress on the missile’s fuselage that it broke up in flight, and the warhead fell to the ground unarmed and didn’t explode.

In the year ending March last year, 75% of stolen vehicles in England and Wales were never recovered. However, if your car was fitted with an aftermarket tracker, up to 99% were recovered. This shows that factory-fitted trackers are next to useless. Apparently, this is because vehicle thieves know exactly where manufacturers hide their trackers and can easily find and remove them. On the other hand, the aftermarket has numerous places where it hides a tracker. If an expensive car has an aftermarket tracker fitted in addition to the factory tracker, a thief finding a factory tracker hardly ever looks for an additional aftermarket one.

Wednesday

Good morning all, not a cloud to be seen when I went out this morning, but it is getting chilly first thing, a true sign that autumn is here. The inflation numbers were out this morning, and it’s bad news again for Mascara Man. The headline figure was up to 3.1%, against the 2% target. The main drivers were petroleum and sugar, both of which go into lots of other products.

The Piddington referendum result was announced this morning in front of the world’s press. 311 (92%) of the villagers cast a vote, and 285 voted to leave the UK, while 25 voted to stay, with 1 spoiled vote. Quite an overwhelming vote against the Government’s plan to dump 1,256 illegal immigrants next to the tiny village. Apparently, the military camp that the Government plans to use was a storage depot and has no water supply, drainage or accommodation blocks, all of which have to be installed or built and will cost millions.

Another little bit of Piddington news. The local streets are very narrow (see the picture earlier), unlit, and have no footpaths. So apparently this is a danger to the illegals, and they are all to be given Hi-Viz jackets so they can be seen safely by drivers as they move about. What I find incredible is that the villagers have had this situation for ever, and they don’t get free Hi-Viz jackets. It’s another bit of our two-tier government.

More good news for British industry, two Vietnamese airlines have placed orders for Airbus aircraft. Vietnam Airways has ordered 5 x A350-900 aircraft, the wings of which are made in Broughton, North Wales, and the engines made by Rolls-Royce. Vietravel Airlines, a domestic airline, has ordered 20 x A220s, the wings of which are built in Belfast, and a mix of 30 x A321neo and A321XLR aircraft. All the A320 family wings are also built in Broughton.

It emerged yesterday that the infamous one-in, one-out scheme cost £56,000 for every illegal immigrant we sent back. So, in effect, it is a total waste of money, as we get slightly more immigrants back for those we send to France under the scheme. What we learned yesterday was that if the scheme was cancelled, not only would we be better off financially, but we would also have fewer immigrants!

Two little bits to add to my story yesterday on Ginge and Whinge pulling 7-year-old Prince Archie and 5-year-old Princess Lilibet out of school because of security concerns over the 45-minute journey. I learn that their “security team” did check out the route to the school. But they only did it once, and that was during the school summer holidays. I also hear that Whinge decided to join the school’s mothers’ WhatsApp group and added her mobile phone number. She now has the “security” problem that 40 women in the Cotswolds have her mobile number. Dozy cow.

I hear that MM has recognised my great popularity with the general public and is said to be considering getting a cat for No. 10 North. There are a few problems associated with this plan. To have a cat, he must have permission from the landlord who owns the building, GCHQ. But as GCHQ is a government department, that should be forthcoming. But then no one lives in the building, so who would look after the poor cat? I also hear that MM’s staff have been suggesting suitable names. Gary and Barry are the current favourites, but have obviously been influenced by my name.

Thursday

It’s a good morning to you, my friends. Grey and wet this morning, so I ran as quickly as my 19-year-old (92 in cat years) legs would carry me. I saw MM come in here yesterday, and he didn’t look good. I don’t know if it is the death of his father or the pressure of the job. His predecessor, Legohead, aged terribly in the two years he served me, and I don’t remember his father dying.

A lovely bit of police wokery reaches me from the Metropolitan Police Royal and VIP Protection Squad. The Superintendent in charge, one Angie Gentry, has sent all the officers under her command a number of pictures of various breeds of dog and asked her officers, “Which dog are you today?” I expect most of them were fluffy little miniature poodles or a toy fox terrier. With a boss who asks such stupid questions, I doubt any of them dare to be a snarling Rottweiler or Alsatian. I suppose I’d better watch out, as it’s her squad that guards Number 10.

I love it when I hear tales of utter hypocrisy. Over the weekend, when the news of the huge donations to Reform broke, Liebore sent out people to say how awful it was and stepped up efforts to bring in donations of their own. Now I can report they invited loads of their biggest donors to a drinks party at No. 10 on Tuesday evening. I understand Liebore have lost a fifth of its party membership in the past 12 months and that donations have dropped by 84% since the last election, so bringing in new donations is highly important. However, Labour’s outgoing general secretary, Hollie Ridley, told the party’s governing National Executive Committee that finances were healthy, saying the party was in its strongest financial position since the general election. I guess that was hiding the position directly after the election, when Liebore were in millions of pounds of debt.

News from the Principality of Piddington this morning is that an environmentalist has found Great Crested Newts on the old military site. The Great Crested Newt is a protected species, so disturbing its habitat is illegal. How ironic if a newt trumps the illegals and stops the whole process. We can protect newts, but we can’t protect women and children.

Yesterday, an Argentinian judge, sitting in a court in the southernmost Tierra del Fuego state, ruled that the two companies drilling in the Sea Lion oilfield, in Falkland waters, had to stop. I rather suspect that the ruling will not have an iota of impact on the British and Israeli companies that are licensed to explore for oil in the area by the Government of the Falklands. As neither company has any connection with Argentina, I wonder how Argentina will enforce this ruling.

Reports say that the new headteacher of Frome College in Somerset has suspended 25 pupils in his very first week. Apparently, amongst the crimes committed by pupils that earned them suspensions were laughing, noisily unzipping a pencil case, looking out of the window, and being one minute late. The parents are complaining of overzealous enforcement of rules, but the school says they are “defiant” pupils. It’s probably a bit of both.

The Government has got itself into a bit of a mess over the State Pension. The triple lock means that the pension will increase by the largest of 2.5%, the September inflation figure or the rate of wage increases. At the moment, wage increases are winning, with an average of 3.6%, mainly because the 6.6% average increase given to public employees has dragged up the average. The 3.6% would mean that the pension increase next April will take the State Pension over the income tax allowance, meaning that State Pensioners will have to pay tax on their pensions. No pensioner will vote for that, so will the Government have to exempt the State Pension from tax?

Friday

Hi everyone. Yesterday, the forecast said we were going to have thunderstorms today, but the Met Office has got it wrong again, and there is a bit of scattered sunshine out there. I am expecting that request for money for a new supercomputer any day now.

It seems that I report on Ferguson Marine, the Scottishland Government-owned shipyard, most weeks. Well, this week is no exception. The yard is rapidly running out of work as the Glen Rosa nears completion, and it recently missed out on an order for smallish ferries. So the Scottishland Government is to pay for the yard to build a number of tugs on spec. The yard is to look for customers while the tugs are under construction. The hope is this will provide enough work to bridge the gap until a promised Government order for two ferries and two fisheries protection ships.

I heard late last night that the Irish Teashop was to pay Mascara Man a visit, and I wondered what they sell in an Irish Teashop. I believe it’s things like soda bread and potato bread with Kerrygold butter and that Irish strawberry and rhubarb jam, maybe even Tayto Crisps. Then I heard that the visit was to be to Number 10 North, so I guess I will never find out for sure.

I have been reading a story about five domestic cats that were landed on Marion Island in the sub-Antarctic in 1949. The island was home to a scientific expedition to study the millions of ground-nesting seabirds that inhabited the island. But there was a problem with mice that whalers had accidentally brought to the island years before. The idea was that the cats should be the pets of the scientists and rid the island of mice. But it didn’t work like that. Yes, the cats killed mice, but the cats were the only apex predator on the island and started living wild and eating the seabirds. The cat population grew to over 2,000 before man started hunting them. Fourteen thousand hunting hours later, the last cat was trapped in 1991. Sounds like they rather regretted ever bringing those five initial cats to the island.

I hear that an ex-MI6 spy is suing the Donald for £800,000 in a Scottishland court. The whole case is a bit complicated but harks back to the “fake” Russian dossier that was published during the 2016 presidential election. It was allegedly written by the ex-MI6 employee Christopher Steele, a director of Orbis Business Intelligence. Back in 2024, the Donald sued Orbis in the London High Court, but the judge ruled the case out of time and awarded Orbis £680,000 in costs. The costs haven’t been paid, and Steele is now attempting to recover the money and interest from the Trump Turnberry golf course as a Trump asset. It will be fascinating to see how this case goes.

There were four council by-elections last night, and it was a right old mixture of results. The Tories won a seat from the Greens and lost one to Reform. Labour won one from the Greens, and in Scottishland, the SNP won one seat from an Independent. No one smashed it out of the park, but the Greens definitely did badly. There are six seats up for grabs next week, five on Thursday and, unusually, one on Wednesday.

Three years ago, Derbyshire County Council blocked off the back gate to Helene Ball’s house with a metal fence panel that was cemented into the ground. The woman, who had lived in the house since 1963, claimed she had established a “right of way” through the gate into the adjoining car park. The problem arose because the council chose to close the car park and sell it for housing. However, the court has ruled that Ball did, in fact, have a right of way across the car park and ordered the council to pay £50,000 in costs and not to obstruct the right of way again. I wonder if that will make a redesign of the new houses necessary to accommodate the right of way.

Saturday

Morning, my friends. Nice and dry at the moment, with even an occasional bit of sun, and it is pleasant in the sun. I see that Mascara Man has been trying a distraction tactic again. This time it’s not whatever you call a bread roll, a bap, a barm cake or a Stottie cake, who cares? It’s how his favourite thing is drinking tea and how he drinks 12 cups a day. Well, my favourite thing is catching mice, but as I am old, I don’t get many these days.

A while ago I told you about Boeing having decided to build 777-9 aircraft before they were certified and how this had led to between 30 and 40 planes having been built in the last six years. Emirates Airlines were due to take the first 10 planes off the line but have refused to take any of these prebuilt planes unless they have been reworked to the certification standard. Now I hear that Boeing has started to dismantle one of the prebuilt planes. It seems they have worked out that it will cost less to build a brand-new aircraft than to rebuild one of these pre-production aircraft.

I hear that the cruise ship Norwegian Joy arrived in a port in Alaska yesterday morning with a dead whale impaled on its bow. The captain made an early announcement that the ship would be delayed docking as work needed to be done to the bow. Passengers were then able to see a pair of tugs pull the whale carcass from the ship. It is not known whether the ship struck a living whale or if it ran into a floating body.

The Dutch airline KLM has a problem that it is trying to fix, but it cannot because Airbus also has problems. KLM currently operates a number of old, fuel-hungry aircraft that are also rather noisy. Its main hub, Schiphol Airport, Amsterdam, is applying noise limits on night flights, and these are beginning to hurt KLM. The airline has ordered A350-900 planes to address this. The plane will save them 25% in fuel burn on its long-haul routes and is 40% quieter, sorting out another problem. In addition, passengers love the new A350, whoever flies it. The problem is the plane that was supposed to go into service last August but got pushed back, first to early October and now to late October. Airbus has supply chain problems that hark back to Covid and are only slowly improving. For example, one of its major problems is fuselage sections that are built by Spirit Aerospace in the USA. Airbus has been working on this problem, which has also affected Boeing so much that Boeing recently bought Spirit to bring its work for them in-house and has sold the divisions supplying Airbus to Airbus. The first A350 for KLM has now flown on test but has a problem with the certification of its Business Class pod seats, which the European regulator is dragging its feet on, despite already certifying exactly the same seats in the Air France A350-900. In the meantime, it is all costing KLM money.

What a farce, with the Archbishop of Canterbury giving an award to a radical Muslim cleric, then having to withdraw the award when it was publicised that the cleric had praised Bin Laden. Perhaps the Archbishop should have realised that something wasn’t quite right when the cleric refused to take the award from her because she was a woman, and it had to go via his wife. The woke Archbishop should resign.

The London Borough of Hammersmith and Fulham has been investigating council house fraud and has recovered 18 houses that were being illegally sublet or had been subject to a Right to Buy scam. One tenant who was supposed to be living in White City was actually living in the US and had a US passport in another name. A tenant in Shepherd’s Bush was reported by his disgruntled tenant, even though it meant he lost his home. A third case was that of a tenant who wanted the property to be signed over to his son, who he said was living with him in the house. An investigation showed the tenant was living with his wife in North London, and the son was living in Hounslow and not in the house. I bet there are loads more scammers if the councils could only be bothered to investigate.

The Government has announced that we are looking at returning to making our own enriched uranium for defence purposes. We stopped making our own some years ago, and the reactors on recent submarines have been powered by the material we had in stock. With two coming submarine programmes, AUKUS and Vanguard, and us building our own Trident warheads, I wonder if the stockpile is running low. I hear that BAE Systems, the Defence Nuclear Organisation, Babcock and Rolls-Royce Submarines are all likely to be involved.

That’s me done for the week, and I have a problem. It has started raining, so it’s no windowsill for me this afternoon. I think MM has gone up north, so I might see if his bedroom door is open, so I can snooze on his bed. Chat to you all again next week.

 

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