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As liars go, Starmer is amazingly incompetent. It seems never to have occurred to him that confining the cancellation of elections to Labour-controlled councils would be immediately obvious to everybody and therefore palpably phoney. Given that, on top, this swindle could be challenged in the Courts, one has to wonder whether he is essentially lunatic.

Ramanujan, a handsome fellow, was employed in the depths of Indian railways as a clerk. But he took the view that he was a sound mathematician and wrote unbidden to GH Hardy a mathematics don of Trinity College Cambridge. Hardy did not immediately respond but finally realised just how clever Ramanujan was and therefore invited him to Cambridge where his genius came to be recognised. Some years later Hardy visited Ramanujan in hospital and remarked that his taxi number was 172

The intention behind MTD is to whack up accountancy bills and, for this I thank HMRC. However, looking more carefully for the truth, I do not thank HMRC since in practice I expect MTD to fail. And the clients do not appreciate that. The other 'deadline' is Anti Money Laundering Supervision by HMRC for which I have to pay hundreds of pounds. I and my wife are 79 years old and we go nowhere near money-laundering - as I have stressed to HMRC in the past. But HMRC ignore all that

Last night I heard a BBC World Service programme "Unsuspected Elements" hosted by Marnie Chesterton, a friend of myself and my wife and whose father was a contemporary of mine at school and arguably the politest man in England. Marnie introduced listeners to The Birthday Paradox where a chap invites people to his birthday party. The wording of the invitation is quite detailed. It says: "Please come to my birthday party to be held on 16th February in my drawing-room at 6.00 p.

Palantir is under pressure from professional shorters in the USA. If they win it will not be the case that the others engaged in A1 escape. The question is: is this now? I do not know. Although funnily enough I think London stocks will continue upwards even if Nasdaq 100 comes off 20%. This is because there are so many stocks in London that are basically cheap where provided HMG stops blundering for a few days animal spirits will take over.

THRU has today announced the success of its "Security as a service" option. this indicates to me that THRU is making a profit which will remove any question of its requiring refinancing in mid 2027. The current price of 1p is barmy.

GCM has a few bob in the bank and of course this terrific potential coal mine at Phulbari. Every day that goes by the disastrous consequence of successive governments deeply ignores Phulbari's advantages. I trust this nonsense is coming to an end. If so GCM is a steal at 10p.