Larry’s Diary, Week Three Hundred And Thirty

Monday

Good morning, my lovely readers, and my, was it hot when I went out this morning. I got back and my duty feeder had put my Felix in my bowl, so I scoffed it before it got baked on the rim. It is still quiet here, with Legohead still at Chequers, so I have full range of the house to roam. I have found a couple of rooms with air conditioning, so if I get too hot I can go and cool down. The A/C isn’t supposed to be left on when a room isn’t in use, but I’m not complaining that someone has left it on.

What an odd story. The Government wants to change the law so that parents whose child leaves school and goes into an apprenticeship don’t lose their child allowance. The theory is that parents stop their children from taking up apprenticeships so they don’t lose their child allowance and other tax breaks. I think this is quite ludicrous. It assumes there is an endless number of jobs available for these children to walk into. That simply isn’t the case. Every year, hundreds of thousands of children apply to be apprentices and fail to make the grade.

Rumours this morning of a merger of two parties on the right of politics, Restore Britain and Advance UK. Both parties were set up by ex-Reform members and have similar views. They may very well come together, but as they are fringe parties, they attract similar people. However, they both hate Nigel Farage’s Reform, so the three are unlikely to come together. Add in the Reform experience with getting burned by the Tories when they stood down candidates to get Boris’s Tories a majority to “Get Brexit Done”, and it didn’t happen properly.

In the last Budget, Robber Reevs slipped in several savings-related things that have not been widely reported. The first thing is that from next April, income from stocks and shares ISAs will be taxed at 22 per cent. This is a bit naughty, as ISAs have always been sold as a way to save tax-free. In a plan to get people to invest in the domestic stock market, Robber reduced the tax-free cash ISA limit from £20,000 a year to £12,000 for under 65s. This was an attempt to get the remaining £8,000 into stocks and shares ISAs. She also banned transfers from a stocks and shares ISA to a cash ISA as a loophole. What the Government has done is to effectively return tax on investments to where they were before the introduction of ISAs in 2014.

Stellantis, the huge car maker whose brands include Fiat, Jeep, Vauxhall-Opel, Peugeot, Alfa, Lancia and Citroen, has big plans to launch 25 new European models by 2030 at a cost of €60 billion. Some of these will be replacements for existing cars, but many will be all new. The way I hear it is that Stellantis is looking at three basic platforms, the STLA One, STLA Two and STLA Three, which seem to have replaced the STLA Small, Medium and Large that have been around for the last four years. These will be the basis of new models across all brands and be capable of carrying petrol, hybrid and electric models. For example, STLA One is being touted for the next Peugeot 208 and Vauxhall Corsa, but hasn’t yet been seen. The Two, medium, will boast the likes of the Peugeot 3008, Vauxhall Grandland, Citroen C5 Aircross, DS No8 and Jeep Compass, while the large has the Dodge Charger, Jeep Recon and Alfa’s new Giulia and Stelvio.

Things happen a little differently in Scottishland, where despite it being the May Bank Holiday, the courts appear to be sitting. So I am able to report that Peter Murrell, the estranged husband of ex First Minister Nicola Sturgeon, appeared in court this morning and pleaded guilty to embezzling more than £400,000 while employed as CEO of the SNP. He was remanded in custody and led from the court in handcuffs. I hear that the list of items that he is said to have embezzled ran to 130 pages on the charge sheet and included luxury goods, jewellery, cosmetics, two cars and a motorhome. Of course, Sturgeon is not facing charges, so I suppose the jewellery and cosmetics were for him.

Here’s another announcement smuggled out at the same time as the Chancellor made the announcement of the Great British Summer Savings Scheme in the Commons last week. It seems after many years she has allowed companies to increase the amount they pay car owners who use their own cars on company business. The maximum allowed compensation has been increased from 45p to 55p a mile. However, it is bad news for those of you who ride your bike on company business, as the compensation remains at 20p per mile.

Tuesday

Hi folks, in the words of that great newspaper, The Sun, “Phew, what a scorcher”. Yesterday was too hot for me, and I spent most of the day indoors, on a nice cool bit of vinyl floor. But one bit of good news, a cat water fountain has magically appeared in the corner of the flat’s kitchen. It has a constant stream of running water pouring into a big stainless steel bowl. It’s rather nice, the water is cold, and I do prefer to drink running water. I nearly forgot, the bowl is wide enough for me not to get my whiskers wet.

More bad news for Legohead. The good weather has led to calm seas in the Channel and hence the small boat crossings have leapt. Over 1,000 crossed over the Bank Holiday weekend in 14 boats. With the good weather forecast to last all week, I hate to think how many more we will see arriving. The year with the highest number of people crossing in small boats was 2022 with 50,000, but that year fewer people had crossed earlier in the year to date than have crossed so far this year.

Yesterday I was telling you about Stellantis’s plans for the new Peugeot 208, but today I have news of a massive Europe-wide recall on the current 208. The problem is a little obscure, but it seems that the car’s horn is not loud enough. The European regulations say it should reach at least 87 decibels, but German testers say the current one only reaches 84 decibels. I wonder how much it is going to cost to replace the horns on the 612,196 vehicles affected.

The BBC is getting desperate over its dropping licence take. They believe that they are missing out on around £550 million of income a year from people who are watching BBC programmes and not paying for a licence. They already have a contract with Capita to chase up people they think are not buying a licence but should. Capita are responsible for sending out warning letters and making home visits. Now they have contracted debt recovery specialists, Themis Recoveries, to chase households they believe are dodging the licence fee. Themis have been tasked with dispatching enforcement letters to homes suspected of avoiding payment. They have been initially given a short-term contract, and the BBC intend to evaluate how much they bring in before signing a longer-term contract.

There were two by-elections in the Republic of Ireland at the weekend, one in Dublin and one in Galway. What was common with the two votes was the collapse of Sinn Féin’s vote. The Irish have a system where each seat returns four members, with the person getting the most first preference votes being elected, and the other seats going to those getting second preferences transferred to them.

Over the weekend, Russia launched two Oreshnik medium-range ballistic missiles at Kyiv. The £100 million missiles are reported to travel at Mach 10 and employ six MIRV warheads, which can contain submunitions. But it does not seem to have gone well for the Russians. I hear that one of the missiles reached Kyiv, but its warheads fell in the suburbs and destroyed a row of empty garages. The second missile failed in flight, and its warheads came down over territory occupied by Russia and killed Russian troops.

Today I have seen the list of items Peter Murrell is said to have purchased with his embezzled money, and I do wonder how Wee Nippy could have thought he was being paid enough to afford the luxury lifestyle they enjoyed. On the indictment are included a £1,199 computerised telescope, a £60 designer bread bin, three manicure sets (£293.70), an egg poacher kit (£23.98), a Beatles fountain pen (£1,475), an oak library ladder (£943), a coffee machine (£3,231.90), two toilet seats (£68.82), eight umbrellas (£1,990.50) and three bird feeders (£154.97). It’s a real mix of luxury and the mundane.

Wednesday

Good morning, everyone. It was yet another hot morning, with not a cloud in the sky when I popped out. I came back and my Felix was waiting. I decided to scoff it while it was still fresh, as it gets a bit “cooked” when it is left in this heat, so I licked the bowl clean and had a drink from my running water bowl to wash it down. Legohead seems a bit happier this morning. I think it is the news from Scottishland, and the spotlight having turned on them and allowed him to move out of it for a day or two.

Yesterday’s good news is that the sentences handed down to the three teenage rapists who attacked two girls at knife point, in separate incidents, are to be referred to the Court of Appeal by the Attorney General. At last, Lord Hermer has made a sensible decision.

The Russian government has finally admitted that all is not well in occupied Ukraine. They have told the Russian population in official publications that they have been losing ground to the south of Zaporizhzhia, with the town of Stepnohors’k back in Ukrainian hands and the Ukrainians pushing south. The same article goes on to say that the Russian forces in the area badly need reinforcements and resupply, but both are proving very difficult to achieve. Apparently, the article says reinforcements would have to come from other parts of the front, and that is impractical. As for resupply, the roads to the area, and to Crimea, are under the control of Ukrainian drones, and the Russian Governor of Crimea has already warned of food shortages and petrol rationing.

Here’s a bit of news I never thought I would be reporting. Within the Arsenal first team squad, a group of a dozen players have formed a Bible group. The group includes many of the regular starters, and you may often see them on TV making the sign of the cross and pointing up to the heavens.

Are you old enough to remember when Voyager 1 was launched in September 1977? It is now 16 billion miles from the UK and moving further away at 38,000 mph. In November this year, it will become the first man-made object to be more than a light day away from Earth. At the moment, it is around 22.5 light hours from Earth. But this means that if you send a message to it, it takes nearly a day to get there and another day to get back. It has a sister spacecraft following it, but Voyager 2 won’t get to a light day away from Earth until 2035, so won’t be about to report on that.

The BBC is reviving a TV detective series I have never heard of, but that’s because they last aired it before I was a twinkle in my mother cat’s eye. Mind you, I hear that Bergerac was very popular back in the 1980s, when it ran to nine series. Of course, it being so long ago that it was on, the whole cast has had to be changed. Detective Bergerac was based on the Channel Island of Jersey, and I understand that Bergerac drove around the island in a vintage car. From what I understand, UKTV rebooted the series on its satellite channel two years ago, and the BBC has seen it is popular, so have picked it up and will be showing it from the start on the BBC this summer.

You probably are aware that the World Cup is being held in North America in a few weeks’ time. Matches are to be played in the USA, Canada and Mexico. This has given the USA a bit of a problem, as Iran has qualified for the competition and the two countries are at war. As I understand it, the FIFA rules mean that the USA can’t refuse to host the matches that Iran are in. But they could make staying in the USA uncomfortable. With this in mind, I hear that Mexico have agreed to supply hotel accommodation and training facilities to Iran, who will commute to the USA for their matches.

Thursday

Hello folks, it was a touch cooler this morning when I went for my constitutional. I think it might be because there is a bit more breeze. This morning I have had my ear to several keyholes, and I have learned that ministers have been pressing Red Ed and Legohead to reconsider the ban on drilling in the North Sea. They have been pointing out that last winter we had several periods lasting three or four weeks when the wind farms were not generating because there was no wind. But better still, it was dark in much of the country by 16:30, so the solar panels were useless. It’s then that we had to use gas to generate electricity. The ministers are asking how we explain this to the population who are sitting in their dark, freezing homes. I understand the PTB are having a rethink.

The UN’s Climate Change Commission has stepped back rather from its doom and gloom predictions for planet Earth. It looks like they have realised that many of the wild predictions by climate change extremists are madly overstated. Admittedly, their committee are still believers, but they have definitely given up the Red Ed position that the end of the world is nigh if we don’t all give up fossil fuels. I don’t see the BBC reporting this. Their website is full of the hot weather and how it is all the fault of climate change and burning fossil fuels.

Tony B. Liar is in the news again. This time saying, in a huge article, that Legohead’s government does not have a plan for the country. He says they are veering to the left. I must say I tend to agree, not something I often do with B. Liar, but when I listen to ministers talking in the corridors of power they don’t appear to have a long-term plan and never have had one. They all seem to spend their time firefighting whatever has arisen that day. I get the impression that there is no love lost between Legohead and B. Liar, and both would do everything possible to bash the other.

I hear of a call in Scottishland for the SNP leader and First Minister, John Swinney, to resign over the Peter Murrell case. I pondered on the question why, when the police have investigated and charged only Murrell. The answer seems to lie in the fact that it is understood that £600,000 went missing from the SNP accounts, but Murrell has only pleaded guilty to embezzling just over £400,000. People wanted to see the accounts, but it was Swinney who said “No”. So, SNP contributors are understandably suspicious of just why Swinney refused to make the accounts public.

So, the energy regulator has announced an increase of £221 per annum on the cost of your combined gas and electricity bills. That is an increase of 13%. Within minutes of the announcement of the increase, Red Ed Millipede was on the media saying that it was going up because of a war that was none of our causing, and the only way to cheaper fuel was by investing more and harder in wind and solar. I still don’t understand why we price electricity based on the international price of gas. But it has been that way for many years, and it won’t be changed by this government because it suits their Net Zero plans. But we will still need gas and oil for tens of years into the future, so my little brain can’t work out why we are not exploiting our own resources.

Airbus seem to have hit a sweet spot with its A350-F freighter. At the end of last year, they leapt into a lead over Boeing in orders for their new freighters, with 101 aircraft orders booked, while Boeing seems to be stuck on 59 orders for their 777-8F. However, this week Airbus have added an additional six A350-Fs to its backlog, four more to take Air China Cargo to 10, and two more for Cathy, taking their total order to eight.

I hear that Chelsea FC have good grounds to be happy that Arsenal won the Premier League, as it has brought them a £40 million windfall. In recent years, Arsenal purchased three players from Chelsea, Kai Havertz, Noni Madueke and Kepa. Each had a clause in their contract that said a bonus was due to Chelsea if Arsenal won the league with them in the first team squad. And this is exactly what has happened, and Chelsea will benefit by £40 million.

Friday

Hi everyone, it was much more pleasant when I went out this morning, not scorching any more, just very pleasant. But I smell rain in the air. I had to laugh when I read that Wee Nippy said this has been the worst week of her life, adding that she had been completely deceived and betrayed by her husband, Peter Murrell. How she could think nothing was wrong when they were clearly enjoying a lifestyle way above their not inconsiderable income level. Did she never notice three coffee machines in the kitchen, his eight ladies’ umbrellas in the umbrella stand, his fancy fountain pens and the expensive jewellery he gave her and she was pictured wearing? Maybe she didn’t notice because it was a marriage of convenience.

The latest unemployment numbers for youths are out and they are up once more. This time they have leapt to 1.01 million. But what I find interesting is this little nugget that has also crept out. Youth employment has been broken down by indigenous and immigrant, and it seems that an immigrant youth is 29 times more likely to get a job than an indigenous youth. I wonder why?

I hear that the police are a little worried about the huge numbers of Arsenal fans they expect to be on the streets of Highbury on Sunday afternoon for the club’s victory parade. The open-top buses will contain the men’s team and the Premier League trophy, the women’s team and the FIFA Women’s Champions Cup, and possibly the Champions League trophy. There were an estimated 100,000 at the Emirates Stadium last Tuesday, people who turned up spontaneously when Manchester City only drew and could no longer win the league, 50,000 at Aston Villa’s recent parade, and 6,000 at Manchester City’s. So 500,000 attendees would be an unprecedented number of people, no wonder the police have changed the parade’s route and banned a trophy lift.

In parts of Kent, Southwest Water has a huge problem with water supplies. For example, in Whitstable the pumping station has broken down. In other places they have run reservoirs right down, and in more places the demand has been so high that water pressure has dropped. Yesterday there were eight water pick-up stations where the locals could collect bottled water. Unfortunately, the queues at one station were so big that supplies ran out, and the trucks trying to bring in more pallets of bottles couldn’t deliver them because the queues were blocking the approaches.

I hear that in Birmingham, the council brought in a Clean Air Zone back in 2021, with a fee to be paid by drivers whose vehicles don’t meet the emissions limit. The stupidity of this is that the biggest offender by far has been Birmingham City Council, who have clocked up 3,262 fines for their council vehicles. This has meant the council has fined itself over £470,000. I hate to think how much more that could have been if the bin men hadn’t been on strike and their lorries had been out collecting.

I am delighted to tell you I am hearing the negotiations for a Brexit reset with the EU have broken down. The EU have totally rejected Legohead’s plans on a deal on food imports and exports. In addition, I am hearing the two sides are still far apart on an under-30s visa scheme. All I can say is the longer the impasse lasts, the better.

On Wednesday, the Spanish police raided the Madrid offices of the Spanish ruling party, the Socialist Workers Party. According to the Spanish media, it is a graft probe involving alleged influence-peddling and irregular party financing. The Prime Minister, Pedro Sanchez, says that his party will fully cooperate with the police, but he could hardly say otherwise, could he?

Saturday

Morning my friends, much cooler this morning, with high cloud and a light breeze. I must say I like the weekend when there is only a skeleton crew on duty and Legohead is missing. I understand that it is a skeleton crew because that is what is necessary to support a body, and my, does this government need some support.

I hear that the deal between Ukraine and Sweden for Ukraine to receive the Saab JAS 39 Gripen is progressing, and Ukraine is expected to take delivery of its first Gripens either late this year or early next. From what I hear, the first planes they get will be a 16-plane mix of C, single-seat, and D, two-seat, variants. These are aircraft displaced from the Swedish Air Force by new Gripen E models. But Ukraine is also scheduled to procure a minimum of 22 of the current E version. I also hear that all versions will come with the modern MBDA Meteor long-range air-to-air missiles. This missile has a range of 200 km and flies at Mach 4. As I understand it, Ukraine is anxious to obtain the Meteor missile so that it can drive back Russian aircraft launching glide bombs from just inside Russian territory, to a distance from which glide bombs cannot reach Ukrainian territory.

I have now seen the list of 125 “everyday foods” that Robber Reeves has removed tariffs from. What I am interested in is just how many people consider buckwheat, fonio, sugar tablets and frozen olives as everyday foods. Some things make sense, like citrus fruit and olive oil, we just cannot grow them in the UK. If the truth be known, all the foods on the list are a hangover from when we were in the EU, and these tariffs were imposed to protect EU-grown or made produce. We could have removed these tariffs the day we left the EU nearly six and a half years ago, but no one bothered to do it.

Like Britain, Canada has a need for a new airborne early warning and control aircraft. In Canada’s case, they have come to the need to procure aircraft years later than the RAF and consequently have more choice. Canada has been evaluating three aircraft, the Boeing E-3 Wedgetail, based on the Boeing 737, and two aircraft based on the Bombardier Global 6500 ultra long-range large business jet. One of these is the AERIS X offered by LG Harris and using Israeli electronics, and the other is the Saab GlobalEye using Saab electronics. Canada has just announced that the chosen supplier is Saab, and they are in negotiations with them to supply the GlobalEye. I read Canada has a need for six such aircraft, and the project will cost around C$5 billion. I do not for a moment think that Canada would purchase an inferior system to spite the Americans, the French are also buying the GlobalEye, but I do wonder if we would have been better off procuring it if we were ordering now and there was genuine competition.

Once again, travellers have made use of the courts being closed over the Bank Holiday to start building a permanent encampment before a stop order could be obtained. This time they have followed a similar pattern to previous occasions and legally purchased land, and then started the development without planning permission or building control. The development this time is near West Chiltington in West Sussex. Over the weekend a large area was fenced off and tarmacked, while council workers stood and watched. The problem is that as the travellers own the land, the development without planning consent becomes a civil matter and has to go through the courts. I understand a temporary stop-work order is now in place, but the problem is that the travellers will continue to live on the site until the case is heard, in maybe a year’s time.

A row has erupted over the televising of today’s Champions League final between Arsenal and PSG in Budapest. In the past the broadcasting rights holder has always made the final available to the UK free to air. OK, it may have been on some obscure satellite channel, but you could watch without having to pay for the pleasure. This year that is not the case, the rights holder is TNT Sport, ex BT Sport. They have been acquired by HBO Max and, in what appears to be a fit of pique, the match is behind a paywall. From the start of the 2027/28 season, TNT has lost the UK broadcast rights for all three European competitions to Paramount, who to date have not been a sports broadcaster and only stream their programmes in the UK via a tie-up with Sky. It will be interesting to see how Paramount intend to earn a profit on the £1 billion they paid for four years of UK rights.

A bit of news about the Rolls-Royce Small Modular Reactor project. Rolls-Royce now has two experienced manufacturers on board for the heavy equipment manufacturing. The tie-up with Czech company Skoda JS is old and is not surprising, as it is owned by Czech nuclear operating company CEZ, who are also 20% investors in Rolls-Royce SMR Ltd. The new manufacturer to join the party is the South Korean company, Doosan Enerbility. RR SMR say the idea is that they want to have a dual source of reactor vessels and nuclear island plant, and both companies are experienced nuclear island manufacturers. Then Rolls-Royce added something I found intriguing, they said they want to manufacture near their customers. That makes sense with Skoda, as Rolls-Royce already have a contract in the Czech Republic, but their second contract is in the UK. Am I reading too much into this announcement, are Rolls-Royce looking at a project in Asia, or are Doosan Enerbility looking to start manufacturing in the UK?

That is me finished for another week, and I am off to nap on my windowsill as it is warm and sunny with a lovely gentle breeze. This is just my sort of weather, much better than it being stinking hot and me having to find a cool spot to collapse on. Chat to you all again next week, when that will be the last for a while as my scribe is off on another of his beloved cruises.

 

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