In spite of what you might have seen on Facebook, Larry the Cat has not been knighted. It’s true that a 2019 petition asked for him to be, but asking is one thing and getting is a whole different one.  

The petition was rejected, but not for the reason I’d have expected–that Larry isn’t human and  knights traditionally are–but because a petition is the wrong way to nominate someone. You have to click a link and follow the instructions.  

I couldn’t help myself: I clicked and went just far enough to find an awkward reference to people, as opposed to, say, living beings, so if anyone did nominate Larry following the correct procedure, they could well have hit a snag there. I can tell because nominations for honors don’t seem to get a public response the way petitions do. The system operates behind the scenes, and given the history of Boaty McBoatface, when the British public was invited to name a research ship and embraced the one name the organization running the contest very vocally didn’t want–

Yeah. I don’t like to agree with the royal anything, but given the British sense of humor I can see why they might not want to let public input run wild.

Anyway, no honors for Larry, but in the tradition of his species he doesn’t give a rip.

 

Who’s Larry and why do we care? 

Larry’s official title is Chief Mouser to Britain’s Cabinet Office. If he sticks around for a few more weeks–and all the tea leaves say he will–he’ll have outlasted six prime ministers and be on hand to ignore a seventh. To date, he’s been more popular than any of them, or than all of them rolled together. And yes, there’s polling data to support–um, some of that.

Larry was adopted from a rescue center while David Cameron was prime minister, but only after considerable debate. You’d think a country’s cabinet would have other things to argue about, and maybe they did, but there’s something soothing about an endless debate on a topic that, no matter which side wins, won’t do much damage to the country, the party, or the prime minister’s reputation.

The main argument from the no-cat camp seems to have been that taxpayers shouldn’t have to pay for cat food, vet bills, and the kitty’s Netflix subscriptions. That drove me to do a quick consult with Lord Google about money wasted by Cameron’s government and the first article to pop up was about £34 million it poured down the drain in a badly managed effort to consolidate six welfare programs into one. The article is now twelve years old and predicted that the cost would escalate, possibly into hundreds of millions. I didn’t dig any further but I’m sure I could’ve found more expensive examples. One was enough to make my point: you could support a lot of cats on that kind of money. In luxury.

What broke the deadlock was a rat sauntering (okay, my source says scurrying) across the prime ministerial doorstep (that’s 10 Downing Street, which I mention not because any of us are invited but because it will come up repeatedly) during a BBC newscast, in full view of the nation. That didn’t look good and it was now officially time to get a cat, so off the pro-cat faction went to adopt a kitten from a shelter.

“No kitten,” the shelter advised in made-up dialog. “What you need is a cat–fully grown, street wise, and sure of himself.”

They came back with Larry, who got the kind of publicity any politician would envy, prompting the prime minister to pose with him repeatedly, hoping Larry’s charm would rub off.

It didn’t.  

Larry is nobody’s pet. At an early press conference, Cameron announced that Larry was a civil servant, and the press and public accepted that without asking the hard questions: did they follow the standard hiring process, had there been any favoritism, and how much was Larry being paid? Not to mention what kind of currency cats accept.

Larry isn’t paid. The people who work at 10 Downing Street contribute to a fund for his food and healthcare and hold the occasional fundraiser to top up the fund when it’s needed. The contributions are voluntary, although I can’t swear to the absence of social pressure.

 

Mousing 

Information on how much help Larry’s been with the rodent problem is contradictory, but he doesn’t sound like a great mouser. On the other hand, it’s been a long time since we’ve had a great government. The building either was or still is overrun to the point where in 2011 Cameron threw a fork at a mouse during a cabinet dinner. (Sorry–no information is available on whether he hit it, which probably means he didn’t. If he had, its head would be mounted on a wall somewhere.) Still, Larry has been seen to catch the occasional mouse and rat, and in the tradition of his species he deposits some of them at the feet of the humans he favors. 

Anyone care to place bets on whether those rodents are living or dead? You won’t lose any money because we’re not likely to get a definitive answer, but my money’s on living.

He’s also been known to bring some in from outside, through a window, doing his bit (if they’re alive) to help with the rodent problem. 

Most of that comes from Larry’s page at the Museum of the Prime Minister.

To add to his reputation as a mediocre mouser, Larry’s also been seen to catch naps in between hunting expeditions and to ignore mice if he has other things on his mind. His defenders claim his presence is enough deter them and I’d add that a healthy cat needs to sleep 27 hours a day. And come on, people, he’s not even being paid. What do you expect for free?

None of that keeps the public from loving him. Reporters kicking their heels outside 10 Downing Street, waiting for something important to happen, watch him, talk to him, and take pictures of him. One misunderstood their relationship so badly that she got herself scratched, which isn’t a bad way to clarify a relationship.  

I haven’t found a picture of that, but if you’re a fan of cat pictures, I recommend the link above. It has a fair sample.

 

Cat flap

The door to Number 10 doesn’t have one. It also doesn’t have a keyhole or a doorknob. It’s bombproof, humanproof, and catproof. Mice have to find some other way in and clearly they do. If the windows are closed, Larry has to be let in, sometimes by a human inside, who watches the feed from a security camera, or in extreme situations by the cop on duty outside, who knocks on the door so the human inside can open it, allowing Larry to saunter in, and then, what with him being a cat and all, quite possibly decide to go back out.

 

Diplomacy

Other government offices in Downing Street now have their own, lower-profile cats. Larry and the Foreign Office cat, Palmerston, have been known to duke it out in full sight of the press corps, with injuries on both sides. Palmerston retired in 2020 and moved to the country, where he raises sheep and Shetland ponies. When prime ministerial families move their pets into Number 10, where prime ministers traditionally live, diplomacy is handled by the humans on Larry’s behalf. 

How successfully? No comment. 

 

Debunking a conspiracy theory

If you still don’t believe that Larry hasn’t been knighted, let’s look at the evidence: the photos on Facebook show a clean, over-rounded cat. Larry’s lean and a bit on the scruffy side. He wouldn’t have it any other way. And FB’s version of the ceremony shows Larry dressed in at least two different outfits, a hat in one photo and a cape in another. You can probably find more versions if you’re ambitious. But even if it’s only one outfit, have you tried dressing a cat lately? You’d end up like that reporter who misunderstood their relationship.