Larry the cat celebrates 15 years at Downing Street | EUROtoday

Amid the ever-shifting panorama of British politics, a steadfast presence with 4 legs, whiskers, and a penchant for napping marks a big milestone.

Larry the cat, the nation’s official rodent-catcher and unofficial first feline, celebrates 15 years of service this Sunday, having offered a reassuring fixed beneath six prime ministers. Indeed, some would possibly recommend the prime ministers have served beneath him.

“Larry the cat’s approval ratings will be very high,” famous Philip Howell, a Cambridge University professor who has delved into the historical past of human-animal relations. ”And prime ministers have a tendency to not hit these numbers. He represents stability, and that’s at a premium.”

Larry’s exceptional journey noticed him transition from a stray on London’s streets to the hallowed halls of 10 Downing Street, the place he holds the esteemed title of chief mouser to the Cabinet Office.

Adopted from Battersea Dogs and Cats Home by then-prime minister David Cameron, Larry made his debut on 15 February 2011. His official duties, as outlined on the UK authorities web site, embody “greeting guests to the house, inspecting security defenses and testing antique furniture for napping quality”.

The grey-and-white tabby enjoys free rein, typically seizing the chance to upstage world leaders as they arrive at Downing Street’s iconic black door, a lot to the delight of reports photographers. “He’s great at photo-bombing,” remarked Justin Ng, a contract photographer who has noticed Larry through the years. “If there’s a foreign leader that’s about to visit, then we know he’ll just come out at the exact moment that meet-and-greet is about to happen.”

Larry has encountered quite a few world figures, who sometimes discover themselves navigating round or over him. While usually perceived as aloof in direction of males, he notably took a liking to Barack Obama and elicited a smile from President Volodymyr Zelenskyy throughout one of many Ukrainian chief’s visits to London.

When US President Donald Trump visited in 2019, Larry famously crashed the official doorstep photograph alternative earlier than settling down for a nap beneath the presidential armoured automobile, “The Beast”.

Reports on Larry’s rodent-catching prowess fluctuate, although he has been photographed with an occasional mouse – and as soon as, a pigeon, which in the end escaped. “He’s more of a lover than a fighter,” Ng quipped. “He’s very good at what he does: lounging around and basically showing people that he’s very nonchalant.”

Larry has shared his residence, generally uneasily, with numerous prime ministerial pets, together with Boris Johnson’s Jack Russell cross Dilyn and Rishi Sunak’s labrador retriever, Nova. He is saved separate from present Prime Minister Keir Starmer’s household cats, JoJo and Prince, who reside within the personal quarters, leaving Larry to preside over the working areas of Downing Street.

He additionally maintained a famously unstable rivalry with Palmerston, the diplomatic prime cat on the Foreign Office throughout the road, with the pair continuously caught tussling earlier than Palmerston’s retirement in 2020. Palmerston sadly handed away this month in Bermuda, the place he had been serving as “feline relations consultant” to the governor.

Now aged 18 or 19, Larry has slowed considerably however continues to patrol his territory and nap on a window ledge above a radiator simply contained in the No. 10 door. He embodies British mushy energy in feline kind, and any prime minister considering his removing would face vital public backlash. “A cat-hating PM, that seems to me to be political suicide,” Howell asserted.

He highlighted Larry’s nonpartisan standing as an “official pet”, distinguishing him from American presidential pets, typically canines, utilized by leaders to melt their picture. “The fact that cats are less tractable is part of the charm, too,” Howell added. “He’s type of whimsically not partisan in a political sense, however he tends to take to some folks and to not others and he gained’t essentially sit the place you need him to take a seat and pose the place you need him to pose. There is a sure form of unruliness about Larry, which I feel would endear him, definitely, to