Larry’s Diary, Week Three Hundred And Nine

Monday

Good morning my friends, it is yet another wet and dreary morning here in Downing Street and it was truly nasty when I went down to the bottom of the garden behind the gardener’s shed. Every day I seem to bring you another problem that old Legohead is facing. Today I do not know where to begin, there are so many stories welling around No. 10. I think I will start with having a chuckle about the anti-corruption minister who had to resign over allegations that she was corrupt, has been found guilty of corruption in Bangladesh and sentenced to two years in prison. But I doubt that Tulip Saddiq will ever serve the time. Fortunately for her we do not have an extradition agreement with Bangladesh, and I do not expect her to go there voluntarily.

Perhaps the story of the weekend is that the news has emerged that there is not a second £30 billion economic black hole and there never was. In fact, Robbers Reeves was told this by the OBR in early November when they said there was a small budget surplus. But she and Legohead decided to deceive the people of this country, Parliament and the Cabinet and keep this from us. As it got nearer and nearer to budget day the OBR numbers got better and Reeves doubled down and told us about a bad economic situation inherited from the Tories, the war in Ukraine, the Trump tariffs and God knows what else, and to increase the tax take so she could splurge on benefits. But the chickens are coming home to roost, Cabinet ministers are briefing against her.

The news coming out of the ‘Your Party’ initial inaugural annual party conference is amusing. Lots of trans speakers announcing their pronouns before addressing the audience, whom they address as comrade. But they have made two big decisions, that they have formally adopted the confusing name of ‘Your Party’ and that they are to not have a party leader but will be led by a 26-person committee. You know what they say about a camel, it is a horse designed by a committee. Is Your Party a camel?

An interesting tale reaches me from the Channel Island. On the island of Guernsey, Beetons, a family-run fish and chip shop, was closing due to the owners of 21 years struggling to make a living. But it has been sold to a company that is described as a fish and chip shop chain for £975,000. I am not sure that a company that runs two shops in the West Midlands can be described as a chain, but I suppose that the bulk purchasing might make things a bit cheaper and hence profitable.

I hear that when the new train timetable starts in two weeks’ time, on December 14th, the seven o’clock express train from Manchester to London will no longer be on the public timetable. The fastest train of the day, arriving in Euston at 08:59 and very popular with businessmen, is no longer available to the public but will continue to run for the benefit of railway workers. It seems the train has been removed from the timetable because the network needs to make space for additional services from the likes of Sterling to London. But the train cannot be cut as it carries workers needed to run services out of Euston. So, the train will not be removed but will now be subject to being delayed and diverted on a regular basis. I wonder how this will affect the services out of London the workers on the train are supposed to be operating.

The latest idea to come out of Millipede’s little brain seems to be a cracker. He wants to spend £11 billion working with five councils installing heat networks. The plan is to supply heat to homes and places of work from central points, through pipes to the user. You will no longer be able to heat your home with your own boiler or even your own air source heat pump, you will have to be supplied with hot water centrally. Down in my scribe’s hometown of Worthing the Liebore council is already doing this and will soon be heating the main local authority buildings in the town on a heat network. The first places will be the likes of the Town Hall, the central library and the hospital, with the hot water coming from a building housing several big heat pumps. But Millipede’s plans make this look like child’s play. By 2050 he wants all new houses to be on a heat network and wants all council estates and tower blocks to join them.

At the end of last week Airbus put out a mandatory software update for all its A320 family of planes. It seems that a JetBlue plane had suffered an “incident” where a solar flare had damaged its on-board software. By all accounts Airbus reacted very quickly and sent out the update to everyone who operated the A320. The press panicked and said how were the airlines going to update the software on over 6,000 planes. Well, I do not know about other countries, but here in Britain the answer was easy. The big A320 fleet operators here, like British Airways and EasyJet, did it overnight and not a single flight was cancelled. Maybe the system here just works as it should. Mind you, I hear that this morning Airbus say there are only a handful of aircraft that still need updating. Well done the airlines and Airbus.

Tuesday

Hi folks, well at least it was dry when I trotted down the garden this morning and there was no frost. The only problem, I hear, is that it is going to rain this afternoon when I have finished my mouse patrol duties. So, the head of the OBR quit yesterday over the budget leaks. I think this is a bit of cover for the lamentable Legohead and Robber Reeves, but it is not going to work, they are both heading for the chop.

News this morning that we have struck a pharmaceutical deal with the US under which drugs traded between the two countries will be tariff free, on the face of things this is good for the big British pharmaceutical companies like Astra Zenica and GSK. But when you look a bit more deeply it emerges that we have agreed to pay more for US drugs used by the National Health Service. The Americans have long complained that they make less profit on the drugs they sell to the NHS rather than sell in the States. So, despite the World Trade Organisation’s rules saying all pharmaceuticals should be tariff free, that the Donald has been ignoring, this deal is going to cost the NHS an extra £3 billion a year, that was not mentioned in the budget.

Yesterday three ex-Tory MPs quit the party and joined Reform, adding to the Reform strength in depth. I somehow expect that all three will now be lined up to stand for Reform at the next General Election. I must admit that I did not know either Lia Nici or Chris Green, but I was aware of the third, Jonathan Gullis. I was not surprised to hear that Gullis had joined Reform, having seen him on the TV several times recently and noted that his views seemed to reflect Reform values more than Tory. I understand that the three all simply signed up online as party members and had not been in discussion with Reform beforehand. Gullis was a deputy chairman of the Tory party before the last General Election and is currently the mayor of Kidsgrove.

In the US it looks like they have found a massive deposit of lithium under an ancient volcano on the border of Oregon and Nevada. A huge lake that formed in the Mount McDirmitt Caldera is now believed to contain between 20 and 40 million tonnes of lithium in the clay at the bottom of the lake. With lithium currently selling in the US at $37,000 a tonne the deposit could be worth $1.5 trillion dollars. At the moment China has collared much of the world’s supply of lithium which is used in EV, mobile phone and laptop batteries. So, this is vitally important to the US and the rest of the world.

I read that Airbus has completed the assembly of its first A350F freighter and is about to embark on the ground testing. This is expected to take several months before flight testing can begin later in the year, by which time the second test aircraft should be ready. Airbus already has 85 of this version of the plane on order and is expecting a lot more orders. Apparently this plane’s testing is not as tough as for a new aircraft type, as the freighter is a version of an existing model and its Rolls Royce engines are already in wide use.

This cat has his reporters everywhere and one brings him a tale from Ulverston in Cumbria. Way back in 2024 it was announced that the plant there, that makes antibiotics, was to close as its licences to make Zinnat for the Swiss company Sandoz were expiring. When the closure was announced it said they were talking with several companies about reusing the land. But the problem is that much of it is contaminated from years of chemicals being used and rendering the land unfit for housing. Now I hear that the local people say that GSK is close to finalising a deal with BAE to take on the site. The word is that BAE will build naval guns on the site, in particular the Mk 45 127mm gun which will equip the Type 26 frigate. BAE have several contracts for this weapon system, which includes the automatic ammunition handling, from Australia, the USA and Turkey.

I read that in answer to a question in the Commons it has become clear that the Type 26 frigates are to be armed with the Anglo-French Stratus LO missile, something I had never heard of. So, I have been busy finding out what sort of missile this is. It seems there are two Stratus missiles being developed, the LO, low observability, cruise missile and the RS, rapid strike, that is a supersonic highly manoeuvrable missile. The missile is designed to replace Storm Shadow, Exocet and Harpoon in the French, British and Italian military. However, the Stratus LO can be launched from any ship equipped with the Mk 41 vertical launch system so it could also be used by the Type 31 frigate. There is of course also an air-launched version.

Wednesday

Good morning everyone, it was very wet under paw when I went out this morning, but it was not raining and I even saw blue sky. I was going to rant about the Tottenham Turnips court plans this morning, but it is so mad it would be pointless. Instead, I will comment on this morning’s FT story that says Reform is planning to join with the Tories at the next General Election, something that Big Nige denied this morning. This cat thinks that in a few constituencies a local agreement could lead to one or other of the parties standing down, but there will not be a national agreement.

Yesterday the Tottenham Turnip was asked by Sky TV if any more prisoners had been accidentally released from prison since the last update and he told them that two had been released. Less than an hour later he was on the BBC where he was asked a similar question, but this time the answer was that in the last three weeks there had been 12 accidental releases in the three weeks since he promised a major crackdown on just this thing. But you will be pleased to learn that only two are still on the run and they are considered not to be dangerous. Is this man Britain’s most incompetent politician, or is he just unlucky?

In India the Department of Telecommunications has ordered all mobile phone makers to preinstall a government app on all new phones within 90 days. It has also ordered them to install the app on all existing phones via a software update. The rules are also said to say that it must not be possible to delete the app. So why is it so special about the app? Well, it allows the phone to be tracked if lost or stolen, it to be blocked remotely and to report fraud. OK it may be a useful app, but the principle of forcing people to have a government app on your phone sounds like something you would have to do in North Korea.

I find it interesting that football teams seem to spend oodles of money to buy the very best players with costs of £80, £90 or £100 million in transfer fee and wages of hundreds of thousands of pounds a week. But then some clubs make a living by finding very young players and signing them up for their nursery teams and selling the good ones on. The best clubs operate a mixture of the two systems, developing players and buying players and selling those that are good but not quite exceptional. The Arsenal development programme is recognised as one of the best with several home-grown players in the first team squad, but I read they have just agreed to buy Ecuadorian twins Edwin and Holger Quintero when they reach 18 in August 2027. The 16-year-olds are in London this week and have signed a precontract agreement.

Virgin Atlantic Airways are looking to add new destinations to its route network in 2026, including Jamaica and Thailand, and to increase flights to some cities to daily. But what really caught my attention in their press release was that they are looking at adding short haul flights, both domestic and to Europe. However, there are a couple of things that would need to happen before that could happen. Virgin would need more slots at Heathrow, so that would require the third runway, and they would need to acquire a short haul fleet, as they only have long haul aircraft at the moment.

Next I have a story about a woman who paid a cheque for £125,000 from her dying partner into her Barclays account but was only credited with £125. Her partner died the following month, and it was only then that she realised the Barclays mistake as the bulk of the money was still in his account. Barclays claim they cannot put the mistake right as they never had the money and have offered her £500 compensation. Apparently the man knew he was dying and wanted to transfer the contents of his account to his partner before he died. I hear that this one has gone to a solicitor.

I read of an unnamed Canadian cat who arrived at the Aldergrove Animal Hospital in British Columbia to be neutered and was found to have a bottle of wine with him in the pet carrier. I do not know if it was a present for the vet or something for the cat to drink to calm his nerves. If it had been me I would have liked a nice drop of Merlot, but I do not drink much, like most cats I get most of my liquid intake via my wet food.

Thursday

Hello folks, gosh it is a horrible wet morning, I cannot remember the last day it was completely dry. Even yesterday started dry, then we had some torrential showers. Legohead is running scared. Cancelling four mayoral elections for two years seems to be the result of polling showing that Liebore stands no chance of winning them. The polls are still showing Reform most likely to win, with even the Tories ahead of Liebore. Good old Maggie Thatcher had a word for it, he is frit.

Do you remember back before we were told we were all going to die because global warming, when we had acid rain, a new ice age and umpteen other things. One of those problems was the hole in the ozone layer over the Antarctic, caused by all the aerosols we were using. Then the hole started getting smaller. I understand that it now closes every UK winter but reopens each summer. However, every summer it is a bit smaller, and it closes for longer every autumn. I am happy to report that this year it closed on Monday, the earliest it has done so for years. I somehow suspect that global warming, or whatever it is being called this week, will go the same way.

I read that FIFA are having a problem selling the TV rights to the finals of the first Women’s Champions Cup that is due to take place in London at the end of next January. I am not sure why the TV companies do not want to buy the rights for the competition, but they obviously have their reasons. I suppose it could be because it is a women’s competition, there are only four matches between the various continental champions, two semifinals, a third-place playoff and a final, or perhaps FIFA are asking too much money.

I have just discovered Project Nightfall, it is our own project to develop a cost-effective tactical battlefield missile. After a question in Parliament it seems that the preliminary discussion stage is over and the project will be out to tender in the next couple of weeks. The specification looks to be for a missile capable of being launched from a mobile launcher, with a 500-kilometre range and an accuracy of five metres. It is to carry a 200kg warhead and be able to resist electromagnetic interference. I suppose it is better to have control over our own missiles than to buy them from the Yanks.

Russia has a nasty problem at its Baikonur Cosmodrome spaceport in Kazakhstan. Last week it launched a Soyuz mission to take a replacement crew and supplies to the International Space Station. At first it seemed that everything went perfectly and the two Russians and one American on board arrived safely at the ISS. The problem is the take-off has wrecked the launch pad. The trench that directs the rocket exhaust away has collapsed and taken infrastructure and electronics with it. The launch pad is now unusable and is said to be going to take months, even years, to repair. Next month’s resupply mission has already been indefinitely postponed. It looks like the crew of the ISS would do well to start dieting immediately.

The Malaysian Government has announced that a private company is resuming the search for the wreckage of MH 370, the plane that disappeared over the ocean without a trace. It is now over a decade ago that the plane with 239 people on board disappeared. I would love them to find the wreckage and return what is left of the bodies to their relatives, but I have serious doubts it will ever happen.

I cannot remember how many times I have reported on power cuts in Cuba, this time the grid has failed in four provinces and for just about the first time Havana has gone black. At dawn this morning only a few hotels and hospitals in the city had lights on because they have generators. But the whole system in Cuba is falling apart and its reliance on oil-fired power stations has been a disaster with poor quality fuel coming from Venezuela and falling supplies from Russia.

Friday

Hi everyone, a cold and frosty morning, so I didn’t hang about when I went out. I had retired to my cat basket when the Biased Broadcasting Company put out Question Time last night, but it has caused a bit of a kerfuffle this morning. It seems they had planted illegal immigrants in the audience, and of course they had to go to them. But apparently one sat and read out a statement from his phone. I have heard people this morning saying he also had an earpiece in and suggesting that he was getting instructions from the gallery. Of course, I didn’t see the show, so I can’t comment.

So, the Government wants to give the Police a lot more facial recognition powers, with cameras in every city, town and even villages linked to government photo databases like those held by the Passport Office and DVLA. This rather worries me. It will basically mean that the Police, and hence the Government, will know the moment you leave the house and that you shop at Tesco and go to the pub on the way home. Of course, I don’t have a passport or driving licence, but I bet there are loads of photos of yours truly out there on a database. Why should Legohead know what I do at every moment. It is just like Orwell’s 1984.

I have been reading a report on progress at Hinkley Point ‘C’. There is some good news despite it running so late. However, it is a little annoying that many of the pressure parts are being manufactured in France, when only a few years ago they would have been made in the U.K. by the likes of Sheffield Forgemasters or Babcock Energy. The reactor vessel for the second reactor is now complete in the Framatome factory in France and ready to be shipped to the U.K. site, where it will be stored until the reactor building is ready for it. The first of the second reactor’s four steam generators is also ready to be shipped from France. The first reactor is scheduled to go online in 2029 and the second in 2030. I wonder if this will slip again.

Earlier this week I told you about the Indian Government demanding that all mobile phones sold in India have the Government’s Sanchar Saathi app pre-installed. Today I bring you the news that Apple let it be known that they would refuse to install the app on iPhones, and the Government has backed down. The announcement of the backdown made no mention of the Apple refusal or the huge public backlash on privacy and security grounds. Instead, there was a face-saving statement that claimed that suddenly there was no need for enforcement as there was a huge voluntary take-up of the app.

Do you remember how years ago Harry Dunn was killed by an American woman driving on the wrong side of the road. A fresh report now says that Anne Sacoolas, the car driver in the head-on collision, escaped justice and was returned to the States by a loophole in the law, exploited by the Americans. Sacoolas was married to a CIA agent based at RAF Croughton in Northamptonshire. The British and Yanks had an agreement that waived diplomatic immunity for these CIA agents on the base, so if Mr Sacoolas had killed the boy he would have been charged, but the agreement failed to mention agents’ dependants, so she could still claim diplomatic immunity. What a cock-up.

Pensthorpe Natural Park near Fakenham, Norfolk, has just announced that wild beavers have taken up residence and published a photo to prove it. This isn’t the result of a release on the park but is beavers that have been released locally breeding and the new beavers finding their own territories. Beavers went extinct in Britain back in the 16th century, mainly due to them being hunted for their pelts and meat. In recent years they have been imported from Europe, bred in captivity and released on fenced sites. However, the beavers are clever little animals and won’t be fenced in.

This morning, I read that Red Ed Millipede wants to spend £28 billion on the electricity and gas grids. Ofgem tell us this will add £108 a year to energy bills, £48 to gas bills and £60 to electricity bills. When Liebore came to power it was on a promise of lowering energy bills by £350 per annum. Instead they have gone up by almost that. Last week Legohead announced that energy bills would be reduced by £150 with the removal of the green levy. Subsequently it has emerged that you won’t actually be paying any less, as the whole amount is to be moved onto tax. Now comes news of another increase in your bills. When will the public realise that we are being governed by people who seem incapable of telling the truth.

Saturday

Morning my friends, a dry but dull morning that looks like it is going to rain. I am glad Legohead is at Chequers this morning or I would be afraid he would be mad enough to want to kick the cat. The latest opinion poll puts Liebore on a tiny 14%. That would mean around half a dozen seats in the Commons if it actually happened. Reform is on 31%, a lead of 11% over the Tories. It looks like the Farage was a teenage racist attacks are not cutting through.

An interesting snippet of news reaches me from the London Borough of Croydon where Reform UK is suing the Grand Sapphire Hotel. Why, I hear you ask. The answer is quite simple, the hotel had signed a contract with the local branch of Reform to hold their Christmas party there. But Stand Up to Racism learnt of the event and have been threatening the hotel with all kinds of nasty things. The £350 a person event was cancelled at very short notice after Reform had booked entertainment and made arrangements. I read that Reform is suing for £20,000 losses. This will be one to keep an eye on.

Early on Thursday morning there was a 3.3 earthquake up in northern Lancashire that shook homes and businesses in a 20-mile radius but appears not to have done any damage. This was a totally natural event, one of between 200 and 300 earthquakes that happen every year. However, only 20 of these are powerful enough for people to feel. Of course if we had still been fracking for natural gas in Lancashire then that would have got the blame and there would have been demands for it to stop. But as I have said, there are up to 300 natural earthquakes every year. This cat says that as there are so many natural earthquakes a year in Britain, fracking is hardly likely to make any difference.

Have you seen the Waitrose Christmas TV advert. It is a mini romcom about an ordinary bloke called Phil, played by comedian Joe Wilkinson, meeting Keira Knightley at the Waitrose cheese counter. But it has had a surprising effect. The two characters are both buying Sussex Charmer cheese which I was surprised to find is real cheddar cheese made by Bookham & Harrison Farms. But I read that it has had the side effect of doubling the maker’s sales of the cheese. Apparently the makers are delighted as they had no idea the cheese was going to be featured and the advertising has not cost them a single penny.

TfL have announced they would like to take over the current Great Northern services between Moorgate and Welwyn Garden City and Moorgate and Hertford North. The main reason seems to be that GLA has plans to build a huge estate of 21,000 houses at Crews Hill which is served by the Hertford North branch. TfL’s plans include doubling the Welwyn GC service to four an hour out of peaks and making the Hertford service every 10 minutes, the maximum the line can take. The Welwyn service cannot be more than four an hour because it uses the East Coast Main Line and there are just not enough spare pathways. The £48 million plan would be to keep the existing class of trains as they were built specifically to comply with the rule of running underground into Moorgate but to rebrand them as Overground.

I see Reform UK has had a bumper donation of £9 million from British businessman Christopher Harborne. The 62-year-old founder of AML Global has previously been a major donor to the Tories. Interestingly the donation matches the amount of money given to the Liebore party by the trade unions. The word I hear is that Reform has a lot more big donors lined up. But Harborne has been a big investor in crypto currencies and yesterday Liebore talked about banning political donations in crypto, I wonder who that is aimed at.

Argentinian airline Flybondi has announced two big orders for new aircraft, one with Boeing and one with Airbus. The Boeing order is for ten 737 Max 10s and five options. Flybondi is taking a bit of a chance as the Max 10 is still not certified and has a problem with its de-icing system that the maker has been trying to get an agreed fix for, for some time now. Boeing say the plane should be available for production next year sometime, but we shall see. However, the Airbus order for fifteen A230-300 and five options is a bit safer as the aircraft is in production and selling well.

That is me finished for the week and I am ready for my afternoon snooze, we cats need 16 hours sleep a day. It is wet outside now so I have decided I am off to my basket this lunchtime, I have a new snuggly warm blanket with my name on it. I do not know where it has come from, probably the same place as that giant scratching pole, with fairy lights and tinsel on it, outside the front door. Chat to you all next week.
 

© WorthingGooner 2025