Larry the Cat Outlasted Six UK Prime Ministers - And He's Not Retiring
Chief Mouser at 10 Downing Street since 2011. Cameron to Starmer - who ruled how long and what they left behind.
Keir Starmer is leaving. Larry the Cat is staying.
While Britain hunts for its seventh prime minister in a decade, one resident of 10 Downing Street has seen the lot come and go - and still naps on the same windowsill. Larry, the official Chief Mouser to the Cabinet Office, has outlasted six PMs. He is 19, a rescue tabby from Battersea Dogs & Cats Home, and arguably the most stable figure in UK politics since February 15, 2011.
His X account @Number10cat (~892,000 followers) posted after Starmer’s resignation:
I have accepted Keir Starmer’s resignation as my chief servant and have invited Andy Burnham to lay out details for how many meals a day he’ll give me.
Larry does not do diplomacy. He does continuity.
The six prime ministers Larry survived
1. David Cameron (May 2010 - July 2016) - ~6 years
Larry’s first boss - and his longest. Cameron hired the cat to fight a mouse problem at Downing Street. He led the Conservative-Lib Dem coalition, then a Tory majority. His legacy: the Brexit referendum. Britain voted Leave; Cameron resigned the next morning. Larry stayed.
2. Theresa May (July 2016 - July 2019) - ~3 years
May inherited Brexit and spent three years trying to pass a deal. Parliament rejected her plan three times. She cried on the steps of Downing Street when she quit. Larry watched from behind the black door.
3. Boris Johnson (July 2019 - September 2022) - ~3 years
Johnson won a landslide in 2019, then steered Britain through COVID lockdowns. Partygate scandals ended his tenure. He left office after a mass ministerial walkout. Larry famously had a turf war with Foreign Office cat Palmerston (who died in 2023).
4. Liz Truss (September - October 2022) - 49 days
The shortest PM in modern history. Truss’s mini-budget crashed the pound and bond markets. She lasted seven weeks. Larry barely had time to learn her name - which his account later joked about.
5. Rishi Sunak (October 2022 - July 2024) - ~1 year 9 months
Sunak stabilised markets after Truss, fought inflation, and lost the 2024 election to Labour. Calm technocrat era. Larry kept catching mice.
6. Keir Starmer (July 2024 - June 2026) - ~23 months
Starmer ended 14 years of Tory rule with a huge majority. Two years later, after local election losses and Andy Burnham’s by-election win, he quit. Larry’s sixth PM - gone.
By the numbers
| PM | Days in office (approx.) | Larry’s verdict |
|---|---|---|
| Cameron | ~2,200 | Longest partnership |
| May | ~1,100 | Brexit grind |
| Johnson | ~1,150 | Chaos + COVID |
| Truss | 49 | Blink and you missed her |
| Sunak | ~640 | Steady, then defeat |
| Starmer | ~700 | Landslide to exit |
Total: six leaders, one cat, 15+ years at the same address.
Why Larry matters now
Britain is exhausted by revolving PMs. Larry became a meme because he represents the opposite - permanence in a building where careers die in weeks (Truss) or months (Starmer).
He has met Barack Obama and Volodymyr Zelenskyy, chased a fox off the lawn, and survived Brexit, a pandemic, and five leadership crises. Burnham is the favourite to become PM number seven.
Larry’s account already warned:
If it carries on like this I’m going to stop making the effort to learn their names.
Prime ministers resign. The Chief Mouser does not.