Larry the cat

Larry (born c. January 2007) is a British domestic tabby cat who has been Chief Mouser to the Cabinet Office at 10 Downing Street since 2011. He is cared for by Downing Street staff, and is not the personal property of the prime minister of the United Kingdom. Larry has lived at 10 Downing Street during the premierships of six prime ministers: David Cameron, Theresa May, Boris Johnson, Liz Truss, Rishi Sunak, and Keir Starmer.

Larry was born as a stray cataround January 2007 and later came into the possession of the Battersea Dogs & Cats Home. In 2011, he was adopted by Downing Street staff, initially intended to be a pet for Cameron’s children. He was described by Downing Street sources as a "good ratter" and as having "a high chase-drive and hunting instinct In 2012, Battersea Dogs & Cats Home said that Larry's publicity had resulted in a 15% increase in cat adoptions.

Soon after he was taken in at Downing Street, a story circulated in the press purporting that Larry was a lost cat and that the original owner had begun a campaign to retrieve him.[4] However, the story was later found to be a hoax, and no such owner nor campaign existed.

The Downing Street website describes Larry's duties as "greeting guests to the house, inspecting security defences and testing antique furniture for napping quality". It says he is "contemplating a solution to the mouse occupancy of the house" and has told Downing Street that such a solution is still in the "tactical planning stage". Unlike his predecessors since 1929, Larry's costs are funded voluntarily by members of staff. Fundraising events to pay for his food are believed to have included a quiz night, held in the state rooms. David Cameron explained during his final Prime Minister's Questionsin 2016 that Larry is a civil servant and not personal property, and would therefore not leave Downing Street after his successor took office.  Larry has retained his position through May, Johnson, Truss, Sunak, and Starmer ministries.

Within a month of his arrival at Downing Street, anonymous sources described Larry as having "a distinct lack of killer instinct." Later that year, it was revealed that Larry spent more time sleeping than hunting for mice, and shared the company of a female cat, Maisie.  At one point in 2011, mice were so endemic in Downing Street that the Prime Minister, David Cameron, resorted to throwing a fork at one during a Cabinet dinner. His lack of killer instinct also earned him the nickname "Lazy Larry" by the tabloid press. He made his first known kill, a mouse, on 22 April 2011. On 28 August 2012, Larry made his first public killing, dropping his prey on the lawn in front of Number 10. In September 2012, Freya was also appointed the role of Chief Mouser to the Cabinet Office. In October 2013, Larry caught four mice in two weeks and one staff member rescued a mouse from his clutches.

In July 2015, George Osborne, Chancellor of the Exchequer, and Cabinet Office minister Matt Hancock cornered a mouse in the Chancellor's office, trapping it in a brown paper sandwich bag. The press joked that Osborne might take over the position of Chief Mouser. Ahead of the July 2024 general election, an opinion poll from Ipsos showed that Larry had a higher favourability rating (44%) and net favorability rating (40%) than both then prime minister Rishi Sunak(22% and –36%) and current prime minister Keir Starmer(34% and –7%).

David Cameron has said that Larry is a "bit nervous" around men, speculating that, since Larry was a rescue cat, this may be due to negative experiences in his past. Cameron mentioned that Barack Obama is an apparent exception to this fear: he said, "Funnily enough he liked Obama. Obama gave him a stroke and he was all right with Obama." In September 2013, tensions were reportedly growing between Cameron and Larry. It was reported that Cameron objected to cat hair on his suit and the smell of cat food had to be disguised by air freshener when Downing Street had visitors. The Camerons were said not to like Larry, amid suggestions that the pet was a public relations prop. Cameron posted to Twitter saying that he and Larry got on "purr-fectly well". Nevertheless, bookmakers Ladbrokes made Cameron the odds-on (1/2) favourite to leave Downing Street first, with Larry as the 6/4 outsider. The Daily Telegraph suggested that Cameron had never liked cats but that spin doctors believed Larry could improve his public image.

Former deputy prime ministerNick Clegg has described an internal Downing Street security door which requires microphone contact for access as being increasingly "not for security but to keep the cats out from one end of the building to another".  When leaving office in 2016, Cameron spoke of his "sadness" that he could not take Larry with him.  When Theresa May succeeded him in 2016, there were concerns that Larry was stressed and could be missing the Cameron family.