Larry’s Diary, Week Three Hundred And Twenty

Monday

Good morning, my friends. No sun this morning and not terribly warm, but the man on the radio says it is going to get quite warm midweek. It has been quite mad in No. 10 this morning, with Legohead practising his speech in the mirror and designing questions to give to the media to ask him after his speech. My guess is he will talk about his wonderful energy price cap and how it has saved homes £117, despite his government already putting up prices by £350.

Nigel Farage has been having a row with YouGov over why its polls always have Reform polling much lower than anyone else. YouGov claims that their methodology is more accurate than the other polling companies, but that does not stand up to examination. Voting in local by-elections has not reflected the low YouGov predictions, but rather the higher figures from other pollsters. Now I hear that YouGov has announced it is to amend its methodology. I will be interested in seeing how this change is reflected in their polling.

The sporting media went potty over the weekend over an Arsenal player becoming the youngest ever goalscorer in the Premier League. Sixteen-year-old Max Dowman came on as a substitute 20 minutes before the end of a match, set up one goal, and scored another. The lad has been on the edge of something big for a while now, but it is only since becoming 16 that he has been allowed to play in the Premier League this season under the league’s own rules. Unfortunately, he injured a foot at the start of the season and has only just returned to action, or he might have scored even earlier. I hear that Arsenal have a 14-year-old called Luis Munoz who is training with the first team, but it will be a couple of years before he could be playing league football.

At the weekend, the oddest ever sending-off in an English Football League match might have occurred. A Notts County player, Ollie Norburn, went in for a tackle on a Chesterfield player whose boot came off. Norburn picked up his opponent’s boot and, instead of throwing it to him, he slung it off the pitch. This earned him a second yellow card, he had already been booked, and an automatic sending-off.

Over the weekend, the Limp Dumps came up with a new party policy, that we should manufacture and maintain our own nuclear missiles for our submarine deterrent. At the moment, our submarines are constructed to carry the US-made Trident missiles, while we make our own nuclear warheads. The replacement missile would have to be designed to fit the same launch tubes, or an expensive redesign of the new Vanguard-class submarines would be necessary. Now, we have bought 65 US-designed Trident missiles, and they are maintained by the USA on a rolling replacement basis. What happens is that a submarine’s 16 missile warheads are removed in the UK. The boat then heads to the States, where the sixteen missiles are removed for servicing and 16 replacements loaded. The boat then returns to the UK, and serviced warheads are mated to the missiles. I do not think this has been thought through by the Limp Dumps. They have not come up with a cost or a timescale for the whole project. I suspect it might be very expensive and take ages to implement, and all because they have Trump Derangement Syndrome.

News has crept out that P&O Cruises has changed the date by which passengers have to pay the balance on a cruise. It used to be that you paid a deposit on a booking, which my scribe never seemed to know how much it was going to cost. It was supposed to be 10%, but sometimes there is an offer on and it can be 5%, sometimes £50, and was once 0%. Then whatever remained was supposed to be paid 90 days before the cruise sailed. But P&O has just announced that new bookings will now have to pay the balance 120 days before the sailing date. Now here comes the rub, most travel agents expect the balance another 30 days before the cruise operator asks for it. So that is now 150 days, or five months, before you sail. My scribe has four cruises booked, so this does not apply to him yet.

What is happening to HMS Dragon? Reports over the weekend seem to have it chugging around in the Channel and not heading for the Mediterranean. The ship sailed from Portsmouth last week and should have been at least halfway to Cyprus. Instead, it only left UK waters on Sunday. The Navy said that ships often need to have last-minute things done at sea after sailing. Well, are they telling us that they had a problem with the ship and were too embarrassed to have it return to port? Or had it sailed without being fully ready and there were still workmen on board? Or maybe some stores were still being helicoptered out to it. What is the Navy covering up?

Tuesday

Hi folks, it is a bit grey this morning and overcast, but not cold. The good news is the forecast is sunny by midday and warm. It is the windowsill this afternoon, as I need to get away from the poisonous atmosphere in No. 10. After his phone chat with The Donald, Legohead has been truly awful to be anywhere near. The Donald ripped him a new one for not being capable of making a decision over helping in Iran.

That idiot Ed Millepede has been out on the media round, saying the only way forward is wind turbines and solar panels. He says that drilling for oil and gas and producing our own will not make it any cheaper, as it is all priced on the international market. But it does not have to be. I fail to understand how we cannot set our own price for our oil. If we want to sell it abroad, it brings money into the country in taxes and makes the country better off. As for gas, if there is a world price, which is nonsense, why does it cost three times more in the UK than in the USA? Why does no one ask Millepede to explain that?

I hear that roads around RAF Fairford have been closed and green plastic sheeting has been fixed inside the fences in an attempt to stop the public from seeing USAF planes preparing to fly to Iran from the base. Plane spotters have been gathering in large numbers to view the USAF B1s, B2s, B52s, and A10 Warthogs gathering at the base. I suppose the idea is that Iranian agents could report planes being armed and taking off. But I see plane spotters have started taking stepladders so they can see over the barriers. However, when a plane takes off, it can clearly be seen over the height of the fence, so the barriers make no difference whatsoever.

Atlas Worldwide has become the first American company to order the Airbus A350F, the freighter version of the A350. I like to report Airbus A350 orders because we in Britain gain enormously from every order, as Airbus manufactures the wings in their North Wales factory and Rolls-Royce supplies the Trent XWB-97 engines. So, this order for 20 aircraft means 20 wing sets to be built in Wales and 40 engines to be built in Derby, good news indeed. At the moment, Atlas is an all-Boeing airline, so this is a bit of a breakthrough, and I nearly forgot to mention that they have also taken 20 options.

I hear that a lot of teenagers in Kent are catching meningitis. Two have died and others are pretty poorly in hospital. The theory on how it is spreading is interesting. The latest idea is sharing vapes in clubs. I would have thought that was easy to stop, so why are we not getting on with it and banning vapes in clubs? We will see very soon whether it works or not.

Last Friday, the Iranian security chief, Ali Larijani, was one of the only leading officials seen on the streets of Tehran at an Al-Quds Day march organised by the Iranian government in its support. Today I hear that the Israelis claim he has been killed in an airstrike. The story says that Israeli agents learned that Ali Larijani and his son were in a secret apartment, and a plane sent a missile into the apartment.

It looks like the next order for freight ferries in Scottishland, for ferries on the Northern Isles route from Aberdeen to Kirkwall and Lerwick, is going to be built in China. The operator, Serco NorthLink Ferries, has identified Guangzhou Shipyard International as the winner of the competition to build the two ships. The competition is now in a 10-day standstill period before finalising the contract on 24 March. I am not in the least surprised to see the Scots are looking to buy abroad after the mess that is Glen Sannox and Glen Rosa, and the vibration cracks when they go astern.

Wednesday

Good morning, everyone. It is a lovely, sunny, warm spring morning in London today, and for the first time in weeks I enjoyed my pre-breakfast trot down to the bottom of the garden. Last night was the March equinox, the point where the sun leaves the southern hemisphere and moves into the northern hemisphere. What it means is that from now on each day we have increasingly long daylight and less night-time. I love spring and summer. Autumn is not too bad, but I hate winter.

Around the world, the countries that rely on oil and gas imports from the Middle East are looking to switch to their domestic alternatives. For the most part, this is coal, not wind or solar, as Red Ed Millipede seems to think is the answer in the UK. I was reading that the 20% of the world’s oil trade that passes through the Strait of Hormuz normally goes mainly to China and Japan, with some going to South Korea. Unlike the UK, these countries have not been stupid enough to get rid of coal-fired power stations and have started to ramp up production from them. No worries about global warming, or whatever it is being called by the Greenies today. They are just doing it, while we are sending the economy to hell because we are producing 0.8% of the world’s carbon dioxide.

The Chinese version of Amazon has just opened several websites in Europe, including Germany and the UK. The company is JD.com, and the website is joybuy.co.uk. However, the website sells some known brands, but it also has a load of cheap Chinese-made items from brands you have never heard of. I had a quick look, and it had a load of very cheap Chinese electronics like phones, tablet computers, and TVs from brands I had never heard of. I wish you the best of luck if you buy a 40” Coocaa TV for £119.

In Zimbabwe, I hear that Rio Zam, the Zimbabwe subsidiary of Rio Tinto Zinc, the huge mining company, has been stripped of its mining licence for the Sengwa coal mine, which is said to have 1.3 billion tonnes of reserves. What seems to have happened is that Rio Zam had agreed to build a 2,800GW coal-fired power plant near the mine. But Rio Zam is short of money and cannot afford the project. The plant would provide Zimbabwe with enough power to overcome all its power shortages, but Rio Zam has now not only got a power station problem but has also lost the ability to mine coal under a “use it or lose it” condition.

I hear Red Ed Millepede has come up with a new, brilliant way of saving power across the nation, warm beer. His latest brainwave is that pub landlords should turn off the chillers in their cellars to save electricity. Now, I know we British do not like our beer so cold that it has no taste, like US beer, but we do not want it to be warm. I doubt Red Ed has ever been in a lovely old country pub, with a blazing fire, an old dog in front of it, and lovely pints of hand-pumped beer. If he tried to go in one, the landlord would probably chuck him out.

HMS Dragon has finally made it into the Mediterranean and is so tired she is having a rest in Gibraltar before heading on to Cyprus. She is expected to arrive there on Monday, just three weeks after RAF Akrotiri was hit by a drone believed to have been sent by Hamas on behalf of Iran. Well, I suppose it is better late than never.

The Ministry of Defence has issued a Request for Information for 30 boats to be used by Commandos and the Norwegian Coastal Ranger Command for coastal raiding. An RFI is usually the step before asking for tenders. The RFI asks for boats about 24 metres long, with a displacement of up to 60 tonnes, and capable of operating independently for several days. They are to carry both personnel and materials and be designed for coastal operations. I wonder if the boats will be pooled or split between the nations.

Thursday

Hello, folks. A lovely, sunny morning in London, with not a cloud in the sky when I went out. Legohead has a problem with PMQs. He just cannot, or will not, answer the questions he is asked. Yesterday he was asked four times if he had spoken to Mandelslime before he appointed him. Each time, he changed the subject and answered a question that had not been asked. I think he did not, and thinks that if he admitted that he had not, it would open up a whole heap of trouble. But this is only the latest question he has prevaricated over. It seems to be happening every week now. What is the point of PMQs if the PM never answers?

I hear that the US is moving AEW aircraft to the Persian Gulf. Last night, five E-2D Hawkeye planes crossed the Atlantic and landed at Lajes in the Azores, following the route previously used by US planes being repositioned to the Gulf prior to the start of the war. The Hawkeye is a very capable AEW aircraft and is usually carrier-based, but is particularly good at sitting up high and spotting drones with its look-down radar. It can also spot cruise missiles, ballistic missiles, and aircraft. The planes staging through the Azores are the latest upgraded version, capable of being air-to-air refuelled, and were accompanied by two KC-46A tankers. Once in the Middle East, they will be joined by a highly capable Australian E-7 Wedgetail, which I hear is on the way to Saudi Arabia to supplement their ageing fleet of E-3 Sentry AWACS aircraft, which are currently struggling to cover the whole Gulf region.

You will be pleased to know that Randy Andy’s collection of 72 teddy bears has arrived at his new five-bedroom house, much to his delight. Apparently, the new house is nearly ready, and he will be able to move from his current home. I hear that in the new house he will have three staff, one a chef, at his beck and call. In his temporary accommodation, he only has one and must do his own food shopping, delivered from Waitrose. It is a good job he will have more staff in his permanent home, as the 72 bears have to be arranged on his bed in a specific order, there is a bear map, and he is said to get quite upset if one is out of place.

Last week, I told you about the vibration problems with the Glen Sannox ferry. I understand it has been patched up, with the crack welded and additional steel welded inside the hull to hold it together, while the Finnish firm Wärtsilä, which designed and supplied the propellers, is working on a modified design which is hoped to be fitted later this year. Well, the ferry returned to service at the weekend, running a service between Troon and Brodick on the Isle of Arran. Unfortunately, I hear it is out of service once again, this time after a warning light illuminated on one of the engines following the fitting of a spare part. This ferry is an absolute disaster.

For some time, Airbus has had an unidentified purchaser for eight A350-1000 aircraft on its books. There was quite a lot of speculation as to who the customer was, but no one had got it right when it was announced earlier this week that the mystery customer was Air Canada. The A350-1000 is designed to fly about 9,000 nautical miles, far enough to connect Canada non-stop with destinations across the Indian subcontinent, Southeast Asia, and Australia. Not that Air Canada does not already fly to these places, but it will be able to do so non-stop, saving hours of flight time and making its services more competitive.

Max Verstappen has not had a good start to the latest F1 season. In the first race, he was 6th and scored 8 points. In the second race in China, he failed to finish and scored zero points. But he is not a happy bunny and has thrown his toys out of the pram. He has been quoted as saying, “It is like playing Mario Kart. This is not racing.” The problem is that F1 has changed the formula from last season and has gone for more electric power, with more hybrid systems and more battery power. Verstappen’s team, Red Bull, were dominant last season, but their car design is struggling this season, which explains a lot.

For this week’s cat story, I bring you the tale of Louis Vuitton, a six-year-old cat who lives in the small Canadian town of Sutton. The problem with Sutton is that while the town, its main street, and the houses on one side are in Canada, the United States is on the other side of the road, and only a small ditch separates the two countries. On the US side there are open grass fields, and local Canadian residents are warned they will be arrested for crossing the ditch. Obviously, Louis cannot read, as every day he jumps over the ditch into the United States and goes hunting in the fields, often catching mice and smuggling them back as contraband. Louis has not been arrested yet, but it can only be a matter of time before the Border Patrol get him.

Friday

Hi everyone, it is another lovely, sunny morning. When I wake up with the sun streaming in the window and illuminating my cat bowl, all seems well with the world. Then I hear Legohead stomping about, and I know that there is more bad news this morning. Today, it is near-record government borrowing numbers. In February, they borrowed £14.3 billion, the second-highest figure for February on record. I bet Robber Reeve will try to blame it on the Iran war, but that did not start until the last day of that month.

Bad news this morning about this terrible outbreak of meningitis, which seems to have been based on a Canterbury nightclub. The health services have declared a national emergency, even though it is almost completely based in Kent and around the nightclub and the University of Kent in Canterbury. There have been a few scattered cases reported in other parts of the country, but these are individuals, not clusters, and that is quite usual for Britain. On top of that, I hear that the number in hospital has gone up to 27, which is huge.

A huge order for the Airbus A320 family of aircraft has come from the Irish leasing company AerCap, which has converted 45 options into firm orders and placed 55 new orders. The order is for 23 A320neo and 77 A321neo aircraft, which are expected to be delivered from 2028 and immediately leased to US airline Frontier Airlines. More good news for the wings plant in North Wales.

An interesting point for political nerds: the long-awaited rearrangement of local government in England has thrown up an interesting anomaly, the partial return of Middlesex. The county was mostly merged into Greater London back in 1965. The exception was the borough of Spelthorne, which fell under Surrey. Next April, the 11 district and borough councils in Surrey will be replaced by eastern and western geographic authorities, and councillors have now agreed that the western council should be named West Surrey and South Middlesex, as it includes Spelthorne. Unfortunately, this naming convention still must be approved by the Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government, Steve Reed. Who knows what he might decide?

I still cannot work out what is going on in Iran. Can someone explain to me why Iran has been attacking its Persian Gulf neighbours when they have not joined in with the Yanks and the Israelis? I read that the other states, Bahrain, Qatar, Kuwait, Oman, the UAE and Saudi Arabia, have written to the Iranian leadership suggesting they have not sided with Israel or the USA. It seems to be a soft warning that if Iran does not cease and desist, they will join together and counterattack. Could Iran survive an attack from all the Gulf states? Could Iraq and Turkey join in?

The press is reporting that Poland is in the late stages of negotiations with the U.K., Italy and Japan to join them in the sixth-generation fighter aircraft, GCAP. A fourth partner is good, as it would spread the overall development costs and lead to more aircraft orders. For Poland, it would give them access to an advanced aircraft without the risk that a single-supplier aircraft like the USA’s F-35 might have a “kill switch” installed.

I hear that London’s Cutty Sark DLR station is due to reopen on the 27th of March after being closed for a year for refurbishment work. The third-busiest station on the DLR was handling 7.6 million passengers a year but was suffering from continual escalator breakdowns, forcing passengers to use the station’s emergency stairs. This was not too much of a problem going down, but it was a bit of a killer for passengers getting off trains and climbing the 129 steps to street level. In the end, TfL bit the bullet and closed the station for a year and installed four brand-new escalators. The good news is that the rebuild has been finished early, but only by a week. I understand that local shopkeepers are happy because visitor numbers fell during the closure, and the reopening comes just in time for the summer tourist season.

Saturday

Morning, my friends, it is nice and sunny again this morning. So, Iran has fired two ballistic missiles at Diego Garcia, which is British, even if the Yanks share it. Fortunately, one missile failed in flight and the other was intercepted by the Yanks. But the point is they have attacked us for a second time, and as yet the useless Legohead is doing nothing. Do we have to wait until British people are killed before we retaliate? We have been attacked, so could we call on NATO?

In answer to what looked to be a planted question in the Commons, the Defence Minister, Luke Pollard, said that potential upgrades to the Type 31 frigates remain on the table, including options to adapt the ships for evolving operational roles. But what these upgrades and options might be, he did not say. There have been a number of possible enhancements discussed recently because the general-purpose Type 31s are lightly armed. The addition of a bow sonar is one that comes up regularly, as is a towed array. The ship has a 32-cell VLS for air defence, but this is a pretty low number. Even the Indonesian version of the ship is being built with 64 VLS cells, so we know there is space for another 32 cells, and only money is stopping them from being included.

Talking of money, I hear the government has now told the MoD to save £8 billion from next year’s budget, and the plan is to slow down the Navy’s new build projects. That is principally the Type 26 and Type 31 frigates and the Dreadnought nuclear missile submarines. I find it amazing how, so soon after it took us two weeks to get HMS Dragon ready for sailing to Cyprus, we are now looking at slowing down urgently needed new builds. I wonder how this fits with my first story of the day.

The Guardian tells me that, in the last two weeks alone, four illegal immigrants who were returned to France under the so-called “one in, one out” scheme have attempted to re-enter the U.K. They have not come back on small boats as they know most are intercepted and they would be immediately locked up. Instead, they have been secreting themselves in the backs of lorries, like in the good old days. So, these are four we know about, but I wonder how many we do not know about have come back.

There was only one local council by-election this week. It was in Milford Haven (Pembrokeshire) and was another gain for Reform U.K. This time it was from a local independent. Unusually for Wales, the Tories were second. Last of all, with just 4.1% of the vote, came Labour. Reform have now added 77 seats since the big local elections last year.

Since she moved into No. 11, Robber Reeves has been letting out her house in Southwark. It now appears that this has come to the attention of Southwark’s Liebore council, which has announced that the Robber does not have the appropriate licence from the local authority. What is rather disturbing for the Chancellor is that under Southwark by-laws, if a landlord does not have the appropriate licence, the tenants can reclaim all their rent while the illegal situation persists. The problem she has is that this seems to amount to about £38,000.

I hear of a very costly cock-up by Air India. They operate a regular service from New Delhi to Vancouver that goes easterly over India, Bangladesh, China, and the Pacific, for which they are allowed to use a Boeing 777-300ER. On Thursday, the regular departure took off, but it was only when the flight was four hours into its journey and over China that it was realised they had dispatched a 777-200LR, which they were not licensed to use on the route. Rather than risk the flight being turned away, the fully loaded plane was recalled to Delhi, meaning that it went on a seven-hour trip to nowhere. As a plane that size burns about eight tonnes of fuel an hour, that alone was very costly, but the passengers will have to be sent to a hotel before trying to fly them out again, hopefully on the correct plane this time.
That is me finished for the week, and as you know, it is time for my snooze. It is still sunny and fairly nice, so it is definitely the windowsill this afternoon. That will be three weeks running I have made it on to the windowsill. Chat to you all again next week.
 

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