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

Monday

Good morning, everyone. It’s nice and sunny at the moment, but there is thunder and lightning forecast for later. I don’t like all those flashes and bangs. As usual, Legohead has been at Chequers all weekend. I hear he has been plotting how he can stay in power.

As part of this master plan, I hear that Legohead offered the Ginger Growler the job of Health Secretary in place of Wes Weakling. Apparently, she quickly turned it down, so he turned to James Murray, aka The Mekon, one of his loyalists and a snivelling little man who looks the other way when he sees me. I think it was a clever move to offer the job to the Ginger Growler. If she took it, he was safe from her attacking him for his job, but he now knows she is firmly in the enemy camp.

I also think Wes Weakling is playing games, saying he is in favour of rejoining the EU, which I’m sure is designed to attract Liebore rejoiners. Oddly, Mascara man seems to have backed down a bit from his Remainer stance at the referendum, refusing to comment when questioned. Could it be because the Makerfield constituency voted strongly to leave and has just swung heavily to Reform at the local elections.

I have good news for Reformers in London. The well-known Left Wing Liebore MP Dawn Butler says she is going to stand in the 2028 London Mayoral election. The MP for Brent East is British-born of Jamaican parents. Reform selected Laila Cunningham some months ago, and Ant Middleton has announced he is to run as an independent. It isn’t clear yet if Sad Dick is going to run again, but it is quite possible. The favourite for the Tory candidate is James Cleverly, but other Tories in the race are Justine Greening and Paul Scully. The Greens and Limp Dumps have still to name someone.

I read that Wrigley Mars are spending £5 million modernising their factory in Slough. They are putting in modern production lines and robots to move the products around the factory. They currently make 5 million chocolate bars a day and 2 million Maltesers an hour. This is double the number produced in 2025. They make Mars, Bounty, Snickers, M&Ms and Milky Way there. Not that chocolate is my thing, but they also make Dreamies, which are much more to my liking. I don’t think they make them on the same production line.

My scribe tells me that with the end of the women’s football season, his beloved Arsenal Women’s team are making big changes. Four of the regular first-team squad and two goalkeepers are leaving on free transfers at the end of their contracts. They are all established internationals and would easily have starting positions in most Women’s Super League squads. But the rumours are that several top internationals will be joining the club when the transfer window opens in July and their current contracts expire. My spies tell me that they will be welcoming England international Georgina Stanway and Swiss international Géraldine Reuteler on free transfers. Another rumour says Ona Batlle, the Spain and Barcelona full-back, is on the verge of joining, which would explain why Arsenal are willing to let Katie McCabe leave on a free.

What is happening to HMS Anson? It is still in port in Gibraltar, having cut the submarine’s visit to Australia short. I did hear speculation that it was destined for the Persian Gulf and may be preparing for the mission. Could this have anything to do with the fact that an RAF C17 Globemaster has made three trips from the UK to Gibraltar since May 15? Is it a crew change, replenishment or rearming?

Tuesday

Hi folks, it was a miserable morning in London. It was raining hard and very dull when I went out. Rather than my normal stroll, I ran as quickly as my old legs would carry me. More bad news for Legohead this morning. The unemployment level is up to 5% in the three months to March, the highest level in 10 years. Since coming to power, Legohead and Robber Reeves have brought in policies that are killing jobs by banning drilling in the North Sea, increasing taxes and increasing the minimum wage.

I hear that Lee Anderson is taking over from Dr David Bull as the Chairman of Reform. Bull is standing down to concentrate on running for Parliament but will continue to be a media adviser. The rumours I hear are that Bull will not be parachuted into Makerfield, where he might be viewed as a soft southerner. Instead, I hear he is more likely going to be nominated for a seat in his native East Anglia and will be preparing for a General Election.

Today I am hearing a rumour that Reform approached Maggie Oliver, the ex-policewoman who now campaigns for the gang rape victims, to be their candidate for the Makerfield by-election. Unfortunately, I hear she has said no. That is a huge shame, as I think she would have made an excellent MP and given her a Parliamentary platform to campaign from.

The Ministry of Defence has finally placed an order for self-propelled guns to replace the 99 x AS90 self-propelled guns we gave to Ukraine. We have ordered 72 x RCH155 guns. There are some major differences between the old and new guns. For example, the old ones were tracked, while the new ones are wheeled. The old guns had rifled barrels, while the new ones are smooth bore, bringing them in line with the rest of NATO. This move has some advantages in that the gun will be able to fire the standard NATO 155mm fin-stabilised ammunition, while the old barrel imparted a spin on the round that stabilised it in flight. The Ukrainians describe the ancient AS90 as a “Rolls Royce” compared to the Lada Russian artillery they inherited from the old Soviet Union. But it is its accuracy that is the big winner for them. I only hope the new guns are as accurate as the old ones.

I am used to reading about Ukrainians using drones to attack Russian warships, but I was a little surprised by the latest report. Over the four years of war, attacks have mostly been on ships in the Black Sea and have used aerial or naval drones, and occasionally rockets or missiles. More recently, with the Russians virtually abandoning their base in Sevastopol, the more distant base in Novorossiysk has been the target, as have ships in the Sea of Azov. But with the development of longer-range drones, I hear of attacks now occurring on Russian Navy vessels on the inland Caspian Sea, which is also known as the world’s largest lake. I have just seen video of a Ukrainian FP1 drone hitting a patrol boat more than 1,500 kms from the Ukrainian border. I can only speculate that it must have come as a bit of a shock to the boat’s crew, who I suspect thought they had a pretty cushy assignment being based so far from the frontline.

An opinion poll says that in a vote among Liebore members, Mascara man would beat Legohead. I don’t know if this is a good thing, as apart from flip-flopping on rejoining the EU and loving buses, I’m not sure what his policies are. But the bit hardly being reported by the media is that the same poll says that in a straight fight between Legohead and Wes Weakling, Legohead would win.

Interesting news coming out of Babcock’s Rosyth shipyard. They are to manufacture complex submarine assemblies for the US Navy’s Virginia-class Block VI attack submarines. This is a contract with HII, the owners of Newport News Shipbuilding, who produce the Virginia-class submarines. Babcock already produce parts for the Common Missile Compartment programme that is shared by the RN Dreadnought and USN Columbia-class Trident missile submarines. Babcock have a contract to supply 75 tactical missile launch tubes. Exactly what the new contract covers is not yet disclosed. As I understand it, this work is probably secret under the US Naval Reactors regulations. US submarine production is currently in trouble, with projects running late mainly due to a shortage of skilled workers. Rosyth is a nuclear-certified shipyard, has spare capacity and is a proven subcontractor, so is an obvious choice for a further subcontract.

Wednesday

Good morning, everyone. A better morning, with some sunshine and a bit warmer than yesterday, but there are some showers forecast later. Yet another problem for Legohead this morning. The Government was supposed to release the next tranche of Mandelslime documents this week, but have now said they are to be held back until after the Makerfield by-election. With rumours saying the documents are very harmful for Legohead, it is hardly surprising he does not want to release them. I wonder how Parliament is going to react.

Have we gone truly mad in this country? I hear of a Malaysian woman, Erin Ong, who has won a wrongful dismissal case at an Employment Tribunal, despite being here on a visitor visa. Ong was employed as a hotel manager but did not have a work permit. She also claimed that the feather pillows and duvets at the hotel worsened her asthma. According to evidence given at the tribunal, she was sacked when she refused to move. Having won the case, Ong is in line to receive compensation for race, sex and disability discrimination during her time at the Fisherbeck Hotel, Cumbria. I cannot understand why she was able to claim wrongful dismissal when she should not have been working.

The MoD has issued a fresh Request for Information under the name Project Instigator. What they are looking for is a medium-range loitering drone. The specification calls for a drone capable of flying at least 80 kms and then loitering for 45 minutes. An interesting point is that the drone should be capable of being launched from both land and sea platforms. The sea platform is said to be a small boat travelling at up to six knots in various sea states. In addition, the MoD calls for a mature system. I am not sure that any British company can comply with this specification, but I bet a few Ukrainian, Iranian and Russian companies could.

There is a bit of a row going on in Scottishland over an Indian student, Q Manivannan, who was elected as a Green MSP from the regional list. The problem seems to revolve around him, although he uses They/Them pronouns, only being in Scotland on a student visa and being one of Scottishland’s first trans MSPs. However, it is the visa problem that is exercising most people. His visa expires next year, so there is a question over whether he will have to return to India then and what happens to his seat. Mind you, the Scottishland Greens have been moaning that anyone not happy with the MP is a transphobe and a racist.

This farce about Southampton spying on Middlesbrough before their Championship play-off semi-final is the gift that keeps on giving. Southampton pleaded guilty, they could hardly have done anything else as they were caught red-handed. The tribunal took into account several other cases Southampton admitted to, so it was not a surprise when they were found guilty yesterday, thrown out of the competition and Middlesbrough reinstated. So, the play-off final at Wembley on Saturday suddenly became a match between Hull City and Middlesbrough, until Southampton appealed. I understand the appeal is based on the harshness of the sentence. The result of the appeal is to be announced later today. I feel sorry for both Hull and Middlesbrough, this affair is none of their doing.

I hear that our fleet of F35B jets are suffering from several problems. We still have not managed to receive our full order of 48, as one fell off an aircraft carrier in the Mediterranean. Although it was later recovered, we are never going to have more than 47 until we order some more. Two of the final delivery flights developed problems crossing the Atlantic and diverted to the Azores, where they remain two months later. These two remain the property of Lockheed, and they need to fix them. Finally, an exercise meant that we embarked 26 aircraft on HMS Prince of Wales for Operation Highmast, and it proved to have overstretched the carrier’s capabilities to maintain them and have enough spares on board. Perhaps more worrying is that a high number of those planes embarked have subsequently had to be treated for saltwater corrosion. What use is an advanced stealth jet that cannot be used for its main purpose on our carriers?

I suppose I must congratulate my scribe on his team becoming Premier League champions for the first time in 22 years, with Manchester City only managing to get a draw at Bournemouth. They now need to win the Champions League final the weekend after next. That puts them into the Champions Cup, and that means much more money on top of what they have earned this year. More money means better players, which means a better chance of winning again. Is that what is known as a virtuous circle?

Thursday

Hello, folks. It has started off warmer this morning, but it is still overcast. However, I understand that the sun is going to come out later and we are going to have the first of a string of warm and sunny days, bang in time for half term. I love the video of Robber Reeves being heckled at a filling station in Leeds, where she was supposed to be boasting about the decision not to put 5p on petrol. It made her look even more stupid.

I start the day with a lovely story from Ireland, where they have just sent 22 men back to Pakistan on a charter flight. The men were all either criminals or people who had entered the country illegally. Being concerned about their human rights, the Irish gave them free meals on the flight, part of which was a full Irish breakfast. For those of you who do not know, a full Irish breakfast is just like a full English but with added potato bread and soda bread. But the ungrateful deportees complained that the breakfast included pork sausages and bacon. I wonder if it was a deliberate action by the Irish authorities. If so, I congratulate them.

Still on food, the Government is talking about forcing shops to cap the price of “essentials” like bread, milk, eggs and cheese. That is all very good, but who is going to pay to hold down those prices? It is not the Government, as they say they will not be subsidising those items. It is not the shops, we already have the most efficient supermarkets in Europe due to the huge competition in the UK. If they are forced to sell those items below cost, they will put up prices elsewhere that are not controlled. The farmers are already hardly making a profit. So that leaves just one person paying, and that is you. Do not tell me that it will come out of supermarket profits, they only make 4% on turnover, which is tiny. It only looks big because the volume of sales is so large.

The latest review of HS2 says it is now going to cost more than the NASA moon mission and will not be ready until 2043. I recognise that the West Coast Main Line is congested and needed something doing to sort out its problems, but I cannot see that HS2 was ever the answer. OK, it takes a number of services off the WCML, but because HS2 was over-specified to run at 250 mph, a speed it will not reach, it must run in a nearly straight line with only very gentle curves and gradients, with lots of expensive viaducts and tunnels. Consequently, HS2 misses Coventry, where just about every WCML train stops because of the large number of passengers who use it, so now it will get an inferior service. One thing is certain, HS2 will not be running in my lifetime.

Ukraine is already using the Dutch company Destinus’s Ruta cruise missile against Russia. It has some 500 km range and carries a 250 kg warhead. The Block 2 version is currently being live tested in Ukraine and has pushed the range to 700 km and is due to go into mass production by the summer. Now I hear that Block 3 is in late development and has replaced the engine with a turbojet, giving it a range of 2,000 km. Block 3 is expected to be flight tested early next year. A range of 2,000 km from Ukraine puts a vast amount of Russia in the target area. With the recent success that Ukraine has had in hitting Russian infrastructure, I wonder if Ruta Block 3 will be needed.

The Government has announced a temporary relaxation on imports of refined Russian oil and liquid natural gas. This is because of the closure of the Strait of Hormuz. Russia uses its oil and gas sales to finance its war in Ukraine, which is why the sanctions were imposed in the first place. It uses a shadow fleet to export crude oil to the likes of India, where it is refined into petrol and diesel, and it is this fuel that the Government has given permission to purchase. The biggest LNG plant in Russia is Yamal, near Sabetta on the Yamal Peninsula, and it produces about 17 million tonnes of LNG a year. Yamal is 3,000 km from Ukraine, so it is currently out of their reach, that is until they develop a ballistic missile.

I hear that the sixth-generation Anglo-Italian-Japanese GCAP fighter aircraft is on the verge of moving to a full-blown, fully funded Government development programme. As I hear it, the Government is on the verge of putting up £6 billion in funding. From what I understand, that would be our share of the funding necessary to bring the plane into full service by 2035, as per the current programme. The programme is currently the only viable sixth-generation fighter programme available to most Western nations. The US programme is not open to any partners. The Franco-German-Spanish project is stalled, with France and Germany at loggerheads. That leaves the only other viable project in China and, although they have already flown a demonstrator, it appears to suffer from the problem that most Chinese jets, both civil and military, suffer from, a lack of a decent engine. I hear that the Canadians have applied for GCAP observer status, Poland has asked to join, and Germany is looking on with jealousy.

Friday

Hi everyone, it is a beautiful morning, sunny and warm. The sooner I get my daily reports done and get out into the fresh air, the better. Today I hear about Mascara man losing his cool with a reporter. It seems that the reporter was going around with Farage and the Reform candidate, and they stopped at a random café for a cuppa and a chat with the customers. It turned out that Mascara man was meeting mentally disabled youngsters in a marquee outside. The reporter asked a minder if he could have a word with Mascara man when he left, but he slipped out of the back entrance. The reporter caught up with him and started to ask a question, and was met with a torrent of abuse. I wonder how he would react to the reporters who inhabit Downing Street and shout questions and make remarks?

A little more on the Liebore decision not to go ahead with the scheduled September 5p increase in fuel duty. Due to the millions of extra income that the Government has been raking in from the increased VAT take on the rise in petrol prices, it was hardly likely that the increase was ever going to happen. But I have a bit of bad news for you, the increase has only been postponed to December.

In the last two years, Kent Police have recorded the names of 963 children under nine who had been guilty of committing crimes. Included in this was a one-year-old girl who scratched another one-year-old. At first, I wondered why the police would waste their time on something so trivial, but then I realised what was happening. It is much easier to record this sort of incident, and it goes down as a solved crime. This then puts them in a good light in the Home Office crime statistics. So, there it is, it is because it makes Kent Constabulary look good.

Here is an interesting thing. We have just signed a trade deal worth £3.4 billion a year with the Gulf Cooperation Council, a group of six Persian Gulf nations. Although Legohead will claim the credit for the deal, it has been in the negotiation process for years and under four different Prime Ministers. What intrigues me is that if we join the EU’s single community, as Legohead wants, we will have to give the deal up and trade under EU rules. Of course, the same applies to all the deals we have done, and that includes the deal with the US and double the rate of tariffs that the US imposes on the EU. Do not forget we will also have to pay the EU to join their system.

I read that 19-year-old George Finch, the Reform leader of Warwickshire County Council, has now been voted in as leader of Nuneaton and Bedworth Borough Council. This is the first time in history that the same man has run these two councils. Interestingly, it was with the support of the local Tory councillors. He defeated the Liebore candidate, Labour Group leader Brady Hughes. It looks like Liebore were bad losers, as they presented Finch with a copy of the Ladybird book on climate change as a winning gift. After the local elections, Nuneaton and Bedworth Borough Council is now made up of Reform, who have 15 seats on the council, Labour have 11, the Conservatives have nine and the Green Party have three. Is this the beginning of Reform and the Tories working together to defeat the left?

Liebore have been boasting that net immigration has fallen to just 171,000 in 2025, according to the latest figures released yesterday. But when you look more deeply into the numbers, it is not as good news as it appears on the surface. The net number is arrived at by taking the emigration numbers away from the immigration numbers, so this figure was derived from about 640,000 emigrants being deducted from around 800,000 immigrants. Another thing this does not show is that the emigrants are mostly those who contributed to the country, doctors, nurses, scientists and engineers, while the immigrants are mostly Sudanese goat herders and unemployed Pakistanis, who will never contribute to the UK economy.

The Government has announced free bus travel for children aged 5 to 15 years old during August, and Robber Reeves has made a video, sitting on a bus, saying how wonderful this is. But is it? Will it mean gangs of feral kids riding the buses all day? It also seems to miss the point that a couple of years ago the school leaving age was increased to 18, unless a child over 16 went into educational employment like an apprenticeship. So, if you want to take your 16 and 17-year-old schoolchildren to the cinema and you need to go by bus, you will have to pay their fares in full. Children already travel for free in London.

Saturday

Morning, my friends, another warm and sunny morning, with the forecast saying it is going to be hotter than yesterday. Today I have news from Makerfield, where the Greens are in trouble, with their candidate lasting just nine hours before having to stand down for a previous antisemitic statement. Meanwhile, in London, nine councillors, eight Green and one Liebore, elected just last month, have had to stand down or have been thrown out for not being eligible to be councillors. OK, one or two can be excused, one became ill after the election, and one was elected as both Mayor and as a councillor, and they cannot hold both positions. But others were never eligible to stand, they were teachers in state schools, employed by the council, or charged with antisemitism. The vetting process must have been rubbish.

This election in Makerfield is a strange thing. With Mascara Man now the official Liebore candidate, several cabinet ministers have said they will be going up there to campaign for him. This means that they are campaigning against Legohead. During the last election, Reform used the slogan “Vote Reform, get Starmer out”. Now it seems the pro Mascara man slogan is “Vote Liebore, get Starmer out”. I hear Legohead is planning to campaign on behalf of Mascara man. I can only think that this is because he is so unpopular that he thinks his appearance will increase the Reform vote.

I heard a politician on the radio saying that Liebore have made so many U-turns, they are now stuck in the U-bend. What we need now is for them to be flushed away.

The Manchester Police have announced that they arrested four men and one woman over fraud associated with the nomination of candidates for Tameside Council’s St Peter’s Ward, in the recent local election. This was the only ward to return a Liebore councillor. The vast majority went to Reform. The police say another statement will be put out in the future. But your cat report has dug a bit deeper and discovered a murky tale on the Manchester Mill website. They appear to have discovered that the elected Liebore councillor, Atta Ul-Rasool, benefited from there being two fake independent candidates on the vote, splitting the opposition vote in favour of Ul-Rasool. Neither of the fakes took any part in the hustings and did not campaign. The Mill says that they heard about the plot in a Liebore supporters WhatsApp group before the election, and it was rapidly deleted with warnings that it should not be discussed in public forums. The Mill said they went to the home of one of the official nominators of one of the fakes, and it was plastered with Ul-Rasool posters. The two fake candidates, Marie Fairhurst and Muhammad Ali, were not at the count despite getting 291 votes between them. Ul-Rasool had a 177 majority over legitimate independent candidate Ahmed Mehmood. After the election, Marie Fairhurst was interviewed by the Mill and said she had no idea she was standing in the election.

Today I read that the Government’s promise to ensure that pensioners will not suffer extra income tax by the state pension paying over the tax threshold has run into problems. The issue has been caused by the Government freezing the tax threshold, which used to increase every year, and increasing pensions under the triple lock. The Government has said they will bring in an exemption for pensioners, but as I understand it, it will only apply to very few pensioners. Britain currently has around 13.2 million state pensioners. Around 7.7 million pensioners on the old state pension system will automatically miss out because the exemption only applies to “basic” pensioners, and these people all have additional add-ons such as SERPS and the Second State Pension that make them ineligible. Then, of the roughly five million on the new state pension, most will also fail to qualify because they have additional income, protected payments, or overseas residency. This means that only 700,000 will benefit from the exemption. Is this a clever bit of manipulation by the Government or ineptitude?

The Government has announced that they are going to reduce tariffs on food imports. Although I am happy that this could reduce the cost of food in the shops, I learn that it is predicted to knock 10p a week off the average weekly shop. But digging a bit deeper, I discover there is a tariff on cocoa beans coming into the country. I thought tariffs were supposed to be aimed at protecting domestic production, but we cannot grow cocoa in this country.

With the final of the Championship promotion play-off finally sorted out, Hull City battle it out with Middlesbrough for promotion to the Premier League this afternoon. It is a huge one-off prize for the winner, as it is said it can be worth £200 million. The loser is back in the Championship for next season and has earned a bit from the semi-final and final, but it really is a case of winner takes all. The big loser in the play-offs has been Southampton, who thought they had got to Wembley by beating Middlesbrough in their semi-final, only to be thrown out of the final and will start next season in the Championship on minus four points. Good luck to both Hull and Middlesbrough.

My final story of the week harks back to one of my regular topics, the CalMac ferry service between the Scottishland islands and the mainland. On Tuesday, the CalMac ferry, MV Isle of Mull, broke down and was unavailable, so CalMac substituted the smaller MV Loch Frisa. Unfortunately, there were so many passengers waiting for the ferry to Oban that 42 were left behind. Fortunately, the old paddle steamer MV Waverley was in the area, and it diverted to Craignure, picked up the 42 foot passengers and returned them to Oban. I wonder if CalMac are embarrassed at being rescued by a 79-year-old paddle steamer.

That is me finished for another incredible week, and I am off to nap on my windowsill as it is warm and sunny. I am looking forward to a hot week, and for once it looks like Bank Holiday Monday and half term are to be hot and sunny, at least here in the South East. Chat to you all again next week.

 

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