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

Monday

Good morning, my happy readers. It was grey, grotty, misty and chilly this morning when I went out. The bad news was that the RNLI landed another 120 illegal immigrants yesterday evening, bringing the total for Friday, Saturday and Sunday to 673. I hear that there are three more boats on the way this morning.

The interesting thing about yesterday’s small boat arrival was the preparations put in place for this lot. Hundreds of police officers, ambulances and luxury coaches were all in place, ready in Gosport for them to be landed. But surely the most outrageous thing was that the police and two dispersal orders were already in place. The strongest order is in place until Tuesday evening, which I think means there are more illegals due today. Last week, up to and including Saturday, a total of 842 illegals had been detected landing. The Government’s Impact Assessment says each illegal costs the taxpayer of this nation over £12,000 a year. That’s another £10,104,000 we need to find over the next year. No wonder the country is skint. What I want to know is how and when the police knew Sunday’s lot were coming, so they could prepare for them.

On 1 October, the Liebore Government let 800 prisoners out of jail under its early release scheme, with the promise that every single one was out on licence and would have to wear a tag. Before they came out, every prisoner scheduled to be released was asked if they were willing to be tagged, and those who refused were in breach of the release terms. Then Alex Norris, the Justice Secretary and Lord High Chancellor, was asked on Sunday morning television how many of those released had actually been tagged, and he admitted he didn’t know. It is his job to know.

It was the Green Party conference over the weekend, and they passed a resolution stating that anyone who supports Zionism is a racist. This was passed on a tiny vote. I understand there are over 200,000 party members, but the vote was barely 1,200 in favour and 850 against. The very first result was that Israel announced that Zack Polanski (not his real name) was banned from Israel. If it had been me, that would have just been a start. I would have banned all Green MPs and party members.

At the weekend, it was publicly announced, as many of us had heard on the grapevine weeks ago, that the man charged with the killing of Anne Widdecombe was one and the same person who had attempted to firebomb the home of Nigel Farage. The police seem to have failed miserably in investigating this attack. I hear that Farage has three CCTV cameras around his home that record 24/7. The police had access to the videotapes and said there was nothing to be seen on them. Following the killing of Ann Widdecombe, the tapes were reviewed and, lo and behold, a suspect was identified. This was a remarkably sloppy piece of work by the police, and if it had been properly done in the first place, Ann Widdecombe might well still be alive.

The news broke this morning that Andrew Mountbatten Windsor (aka Prince Andrew) was going to court in an attempt to obtain a judicial review of the issue of a warrant for his arrest and the search of his homes. I understand he claims it was totally unnecessary and that, if they had invited him in for an interview, he would have attended. I guess that, as it didn’t happen, we will never know the truth. But he has been invited to give evidence in the States about his relationship with Epstein and has so far refused.

The minority Socialist government in Spain has been forced to call an early general election because of housing and the cost of living. In recent weeks, thousands of Spanish people have taken to the streets in protest. Then the government lost a vote on housing in the Spanish parliament. The figurehead of the national rebellion seems to be an 87-year-old disabled pensioner who was evicted from her home because she couldn’t pay a massive rent increase. She had been paying €500 a month, but this was increased to €2,650 per month. After a protest, this was reduced to €1,650 per month, still €300 a month more than her pension. The Spanish polls are currently favouring a win for the Conservatives.

Tuesday

Hi folks, I was woken up early this morning by the central heating coming on in the flat (it is rather noisy). It is set to come on when it is chilly in the flat, but I have no idea what temperature it is set to. This didn’t happen when Legohead was here, so either MM feels the cold and has had it adjusted, or we have had a couple of cold nights recently. I think it was the latter, as it was a bit chilly when I went out for my pre-breakfast constitutional.

The Yanks have announced that all their supersonic B-1 Lancer bombers have been withdrawn from their forward base at RAF Fairford and returned to their permanent bases in the continental USA. The big question is why? The bombers were using the base to bomb Iran, saving a huge round trip across the Atlantic, so the decision to return them to the US can’t have been easy. But I suspect the problem is that those planes cost over $300 million each to build, and with the recent “attack” on RAF Fairford, the Pentagon didn’t want to take the chance of them being damaged. However, the Government has said that Fairford is perfectly safe and secure. I don’t think the Yanks believe them.

There was a taste of things to come in London yesterday when there was a power failure across 32 London postcodes. It seems someone managed to put a digger through a main cable at about 10:30 am in Shoreditch. The power went out across a wide section of London, including the City, Islington, Hackney and Westminster. Loads of offices went dark, as did several Tube stations. I never noticed it here in No. 10. I understand we have a diesel-powered standby generator that cuts in automatically. With blackouts forecast this winter, I do hope we have several tanks full of diesel ready to go, but with the current shortage of it, I may be disappointed.

This morning, the papers say that Kimi Bad Enoch is going to announce that a Tory government will build a Britannia Shield missile defence system. All well and good, as several countries could easily hit the UK with ballistic missiles (Russia, China and North Korea), and we don’t have a ground-based ballistic missile defence system. We have systems that are capable of hitting jet aircraft, helicopters, cruise missiles and drones, but not ballistic missiles. If we want to protect ourselves against them, we will have to either buy such systems from someone who has them or develop our own, probably using our naval interceptors. Then there is radar. We have fixed radar sites, which would be the first things targeted. So we will have to invest in mobile radar and keep it moving. My final thought is, will this dome protect just big cities and military bases, or the whole country?

Donna Jones, the Hampshire Police and Crime Commissioner, has been complaining that every time there is a demonstration about small boats landing illegal immigrants in Portsmouth/Gosport, it costs her budget £150,000 in policing costs. The simple answer here is to stop small boat landings in the area, and then there will be no demonstrations to police. But, of course, the police have no control over that. If Border Farce decides to bring the illegals into Portsmouth or instructs the RNLI to drop them there, the police have no option but to protect them. It seems that it is getting harder to launch boats from the Calais area, and long-distance routes are now being used from Normandy. Hence, Portsmouth is much nearer for them than Dover. By the way, there were 609 illegal immigrants yesterday on eight boats, and with good weather forecast today, there are likely to be more arriving.

I see Jeremy Clarkson is being criticised in the left-wing media because he had the audacity to tell a side meeting at the Tory conference that people would be mad to start a new business in the UK under the current circumstances. He said this in reply to a question about whether he was thinking of opening a second farm. Clarkson confirmed that he was considering a second farm, but went on to say that, if he did, it would not be in the UK. I can’t say I blame him. I would not consider starting a farming business in the UK either.

Boeing is getting a little nearer to obtaining full certification for its 777-9, but still has some major hurdles to clear, and much is dependent on its new GE9X engine being certified. Well over a year ago, General Electric, the engine makers, realised there was a problem with the durability of a seal in the middle of the engine, and they set about designing a replacement, which was manufactured in the first quarter of this year and then tested. The first production engine with the new seal was delivered to Boeing at the end of the third quarter this year. Boeing had originally planned to make the first customer delivery of the 777-9 in 2020, but after numerous revisions, they had been hoping the first delivery would be late this year. But the engine problem has pushed some testing into next year, especially ETOPS, which is essential for most customers. So don’t expect to see the 777-9 in service until mid-2027 at the earliest.

Wednesday

Good morning, all. Dull and wet this morning, and quite nasty when I popped out for my constitutional. I see MM had a bounce in the YouGov poll that was out yesterday. Clearly, people only half-listened to his conference speech and didn’t realise that he had promised nothing in this parliament. All his promises were for the next government and a new manifesto. Some people are so thick.

Another request has been made for the gas-fired power stations to be ready to pump additional power into the grid this afternoon and evening. The forecast is for it to be wet and colder, with very little wind. Consequently, green power is expected to be in short supply to the grid. With little wind, there will be a shortfall from the wind farms, and, of course, with lots of cloud, solar power will be down. When the weather was good earlier in the year, up to the end of August, we paid wind farms £1.3 billion not to generate as we had too much power. Shouldn’t they pay us when they can’t generate?

Very strange news reaches me from No. 10 North. It has only been open a few weeks, but it is already on the move to a new home. The reason why seems to be associated with the Manchester City financial scandal, but this would probably never have come to light if MM had not stuck his oar in and praised the Dubai United Group’s investment in Manchester properties. Of course, when he said it, the interest of the media was alerted, and they started digging, finding that the Dubai United Group had a 10-year option to redevelop the building housing No. 10 North. I bet MM wishes he had kept his mouth shut.

In a surprise announcement from the Carnival Corporation late yesterday, it was revealed that the 3,000-passenger Queen Anne is to leave the Cunard fleet after its 2029 World Voyage. It will then undergo what Carnival calls “extensive reimagining”, but this is clearly a major refit, and it will join the P&O fleet in late May, replacing the 2,000-passenger Arcadia, which will move to another Carnival company, Holland America Line, in August 2029. Holland America already has four ships of the same class. What Queen Anne and Arcadia will be named in their new homes hasn’t been revealed.

The move of Arcadia to Holland America brings a strange symmetry to the whole swapping-around deal. The current Arcadia was originally laid down as a HAL Vista-class cruise ship but never made it into the fleet, as, while it was being built, it was switched to become the next Cunarder, Queen Anne. However, Cunard complained that it did not have the space to be a Cunard ship. For example, there was no space for a Queens Room ballroom. So, in 2005, Carnival moved it to the P&O fleet, and it became Arcadia. For a few years now, there have been rumours that it was to leave the P&O fleet due to its age. I suspect P&O is getting the best of this swap-around, as in 2029 it will be getting a ship that is only four years old and freshly out of a major refit.

Back in April, Whitbread announced it was closing two restaurant chains, Brewers Fayre and Beefeater. Their plan called for a few of the restaurants that were attached to one of their other group products, Premier Inn, to be converted into an in-hotel restaurant just for hotel residents. Today, I learn that the Common Table Group, a British hospitality firm, has agreed to buy 57 restaurant sites and one Premier Inn hotel. CTG is joined in the purchase by Rove360, a hospitality consultancy that contains a lot of ex-Whitbread management. The purchase is excellent news for over 2,000 employees who will not now lose their jobs.

The MoD’s competition to select a Light Mobility Vehicle to replace its Land Rover and Pinzgauer fleets has moved on a bit this week. The competition is expected to result in the award of a £2.5 billion contract for nine versions of the same vehicle. They are the General Purpose Vehicle (GPV), a Tactical Mobility Vehicle (TMV), a Battlefield Ambulance (BFA), Utility Vehicle (UV), EPV, Command and Control Vehicle (C2V), Equipment Support Vehicle (ESV), Troop Carrying Vehicle (TCV) and Mission Systems Vehicle (MSV). This week’s announcement is that seven tenderers have made it through the initial evaluation and will now enter the testing stage, for which the seven bidders will have to supply examples of their offerings for the General Purpose Vehicle (GPV), a Tactical Mobility Vehicle (TMV) and a Battlefield Ambulance (BFA) within three weeks for rigorous testing. This move is expected to reduce the number of tenderers who will be unable to meet the deadline. This programme is thought to be for about 9,000 vehicles, but several proposed sub-programmes could increase this to 13,000 vehicles and increase the value to nearer £4 billion. A competition well worth winning.

I hear that Western sanctions have hit the Russian civil aviation industry very hard. Following the invasion of Ukraine, not only were Russian airlines banned from flying in Western airspace, but the airlines were also operating a lot of Airbus and Boeing aircraft. Under sanctions, it became illegal for lessors to leave their planes in Russia, and they started to withdraw them. That was until the Russian Government confiscated the aircraft. Of course, that led to a spare parts problem, as they too were sanctioned. As I understand it, around 20% of Russia’s civil fleet is currently grounded as unserviceable. Russia has been going around the world trying to get airlines to operate services in Russia using foreign aircraft wet-leased with crew and maintenance. So far, every attempt has been refused because almost every airline operates either Airbus or Boeing aircraft, and a lease to Russia would result in them also being sanctioned. The current request is with Vietnam, which also operates Airbus and Boeing aircraft, but I don’t expect it to agree.

Thursday

It’s a good morning to you, my friends. It’s dry, sunny, but chilly again. In fact, so chilly that the central heating came on again automatically. The good news was that someone had moved my cat basket so it was close to a kitchen radiator, and I was toasty this morning. The rumour I hear this morning is that Mascara Man is trying to suck up to the EU so they will give him a good deal and he can move the country back into their orbit. From what I hear, he is thinking about slapping big import duties on Chinese EVs to align with the EU’s tariffs.

Bad Enoch spent half her leader’s speech yesterday at the Tory Conference attacking Reform. Surely she should be attacking MM and this disastrous Government. He is leading a traditional tax-and-spend Government and has raised taxes to a record high. But he still can’t bring in enough to cover all the money he is paying out, so he has to borrow. However, he and Legohead have borrowed so much that they have to borrow more to pay the interest on what they have borrowed. Just how long can this madness go on? But he got a free rein to carry on from Bad Enoch yesterday.

I hear that HMRC is looking at refunding some three million pensioners born before 1954 who overpaid tax totalling over £19 million. If you fall into this category, you won’t be receiving a massive rebate, so don’t rush out and buy a new car. It seems that for three years there was a mistake made in calculating the tax due on the retirement pension when it had its annual increase. What should have happened is that, when the tax is calculated for a year, it should have 51 weeks at the new rate and one week at the old rate. Instead, it was calculated at 52 weeks at the new rate, meaning an overpayment of about £6 a year. I suspect you are hardly likely to notice the repayment.

The new all-electric Jaguar Type 01 has been shown to motoring journalists, and the verdicts are a bit mixed. It is going to be sold into the “luxury” market segment, so I doubt any of my readers will be rushing to buy one, especially as it costs a basic £150,000. But it certainly has a bit of a wow factor, with very smooth lines and a beautiful interior. It is very low but has a huge battery pack capable of 430 miles on a single charge. But it has massive acceleration. It can go from 60 to 110 in four seconds. Mind you, it is very wide and 5.2 metres long, which is too long for a standard parking space. I wonder how long after it goes on sale the Government will be buying some for the Government Car Pool.

Earlier this week, an American Airlines Boeing 777ER had to make an inconvenient diversion on its transatlantic flight from Madrid to Dallas-Fort Worth. As the plane was over the Atlantic, six of the plane’s eight toilets failed, causing the pilot to declare a “Pan-Pan” emergency. A “Pan-Pan” emergency is one that is not life-threatening. The plane, with 268 people on board, landed in New York, where it was on the ground for about three hours before heading on to Dallas, where it arrived late, but with much-relieved passengers.

I learn that in the past six months, the Metropolitan Police have been trying to crack down on mobile phone theft and have made over 500 arrests. The big problem I see is what is happening to those 500 people. Are they being sent to prison and having their assets seized? I haven’t heard so, but then, unless you go out and protest about illegal immigration or write hurty words on the internet, you don’t appear in court for years. So, the phone thieves are probably out on bail, still grabbing phones and sending container loads to Asia. Oh, the Met also says there have been adverts on the internet offering children £380 per stolen phone they bring them.

Another 400 illegals arrived on small boats yesterday. That is over 2,000 in the last five days. Those numbers that MM is boasting about being down are looking pretty silly these last few weeks. But the best story from yesterday is of the rubber boat full of 40-plus people that made it virtually all the way to Dover without being detected. It was only when one of the illegals dialled 999 on his phone and begged to be rescued that a Border Farce cutter was dispatched to collect them from just outside Dover Harbour. How can that happen?

Friday

Hi everyone, a little warmer this morning, but not much. At least it was dry first thing. I would like to have seen Mascara Man’s reaction to beating the Greens in yesterday’s Holborn by-election, but he is not in No. 10, as usual on a Friday. Perhaps more interestingly, the Green candidate was Zack Polanski, and he is now in a difficult position as the Green leader.

Another one of those plans from MM to help the nation with the cost-of-living crisis. Hearing complaints from voters about the increasing cost of petrol and diesel, he said he heard them and would see what he could do. So, what is he going to do? Lower VAT on fuel, cut fuel duty, lower council tax on filling stations? He is not going to do any of that. Instead, he is going to get petrol stations to display their fuel prices on Google Maps so we can find the cheapest price locally. What a rubbish solution.

The Bank of England has announced that bumblebees, hedgehogs, barn owls and puffins are to appear on the next issue of £5, £10, £20 and £50 notes. They have decided which animal is going to be on which note, but this cat is rather disappointed that only wild animals were considered. I would have loved to be on the £50 note. But if it can’t be me, I am delighted that a puffin is going to be on one of the notes. Who should it be, the King Puffin SB, one of the hardworking article contributors, or a regular commenter who isn’t read? I can’t make my mind up. Suggestions, please.

In India, its biggest electric power generator, NTPC, has a coal supply problem. This year, it expects to burn 300 million tonnes, as opposed to 275 million tonnes last year. But the country’s biggest coal producer, Coal India, has been having problems supplying thermal coal. Apparently, the weather in the mining areas has been unusually wet (they are blaming El Niño, although that is in the South Pacific off South America), and deliveries of coal have been affected. NTPC has burned through its stockpiles, reducing them from 18 million tonnes to 5.5 million tonnes, and is worried that it may have to make power cuts if supplies can’t be increased. So NTPC is doing the unthinkable and talking to private coal miners about buying 15 million tonnes of coal and increasing production from its own captive coal mines to 50 million tonnes. Whether this will be enough is questionable, as the Indian Ministry of Power has asked NTPC to run its 100 power plants flat out until the end of this year.

This country is getting worse. Today, I read about Mohammed Abbas, an illegal immigrant who came to this country on a small boat. He appeared in court back in July, where he was facing four charges. In court, two charges were withdrawn, including one of indecent assault, but he was found guilty of the remaining charges, assaulting a police officer and common assault, and sentenced to a community order, 300 hours of unpaid work and a £100 fine. On leaving court, he was given a two-bedroom, £250,000 house in Cardiff. Within two days, he was caught having broken into a nearby house at two in the morning and exposing himself to two sisters, one under sixteen and the other under thirteen. He admitted trespass with intent to commit a sexual offence and burglary after stealing a phone and AirPods, and has been remanded in custody. The Home Office says he will be recommended for deportation. Not before time.

Here’s a story that made me chuckle. In the forestry district of Lubliniec in southern Poland, the authorities put up a notice warning people walking in the forest of damage caused by beavers. There is just one problem. The notice was erected on an oak post, and the pole was cut down by the beavers. Apparently, the beavers have felled trees across paths, dug tunnels under roads and flooded areas, but they obviously didn’t want visitors to be warned.

I always thought that Premier League footballers earned an absolute fortune, but I now read that top managers do even better. Mikel Arteta, the manager of reigning champions Arsenal, has just signed a new four-year contract. Under the new contract, he will earn £20 million a year, which is over £384,000 per week. But it doesn’t stop there. He can add up to another £5 million a year in bonuses. Apparently, this makes Arteta the best-paid Premier League manager.

Saturday

Morning, my friends. Another chilly but bright morning, with the sun streaming in through the kitchen window, so it catches me in my cat bed next to the radiator. I hear that the Health Secretary has written to the Chancellor asking for more money so she can pay the nurses their agreed wage increase. I hear the return letter said, “No. You have to pay the increase out of your existing funding.” This Government is a total mess.

News reaches me of a couple of massive aircraft orders by Chinese-owned, Irish-based lessor Avolon. The company has ordered 140 Boeing 737 MAX aircraft, 75 Airbus A320neo aircraft and 35 Airbus A330neo wide-bodies. In addition, Avolon says it has taken options on a further 100 Airbus planes but has not named the version or versions. There is no mention of costs in the announcement.

The Aldabra giant tortoises only live in the wild in two places, Aldabra Atoll in the Seychelles and the Galapagos. In the 19th century, the giant tortoise was almost extinct, with only 1,000 counted on Aldabra. In 1990, the numbers had increased to 100,000, and now I hear that, in the latest survey, there are 183,000 roaming free on Aldabra. Oddly, there are now more giant tortoises in the Seychelles than there are people.

I hear that the second RAF E-7 Wedgetail was delivered to RAF Lossiemouth this week. It first flew at the Boeing factory in the USA back in August. So I suppose an early October delivery is not too bad. The question now is how long it will be before the type goes into RAF service. The third and final E-7 is nearing production completion and is slated for delivery early next year. What a pity we cut the order from five to three, but it is the cost that the MoD looks at, not the need.

Has Ukraine changed its points of attack on Russian infrastructure, or was hitting Yandex a one-off? Yandex is the Russian equivalent of Google, and Ukraine has just hit two of Yandex’s biggest server farms with drones and burnt them out. Ukraine has for some time been hitting Russian oil refineries, and the last report I read said that around 51% were offline and petrol and diesel were difficult to get in some areas. This has led to Russia importing liquid fuel rather than being an exporter. But the Donald has asked Ukraine to stop hitting diesel production, as there is a world shortage. It remains to be seen if Ukraine has switched to attacking server farms.

I hear that the US FCC has just granted Starlink permission to operate 15,000 new satellites that will work directly to link mobile phones with the internet. Of course, the service will not be free, but the idea is that a subscriber will be able to access the internet from anywhere in the world. No more expensive roaming charges, just a single charge that works everywhere. So, could this be the end of rip-off cruise ship Wi-Fi charges? My scribe is away for 16 nights over Christmas and the New Year, and if he wants Wi-Fi, it will cost him £288 for the duration of the holiday.

Could we be in for not just one, but two new opposition party leaders? I told you yesterday that the Green leader was under pressure. I understand that his deputy, Mothin Ali, would like to take over. The Green Party will become a full-blown Islamic party if that comes about. The other party I hear could be getting a new leader is the Limp Dumps. Their Shadow Chief Secretary to the Treasury, Charlie Maynard, quit this week, and the word I hear is that he wants to force a leadership election. I have heard numerous tales of how many members think Ed Davey is totally useless.

That’s me done for the week. I hope that you all appreciate that I have been struggling this week after a visit to the dreaded vet. I didn’t mention it before because I didn’t want to worry you, but I had a little operation to remove a cyst from my right side. I am confined to the house for a few days, but when you see me, you will probably notice where they shaved off a patch of my fur and put in some stitches. I am assured that my fur will grow back soon. Chat to you all again next week.

 

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