Larry's life

I don't know what it is with politicians and their animals to make the stories so newsworthy - maybe some atavistic connection, deep, as it were, calling to deep.

First there was Bo, the White House dog. We haven't heard much of Bo lately and must hope his prolonged connection with the Obama regime has not caused him to be making grandiose plans to invade the Senate, or create a national dog protection system.

Now it is Larry, the Downing St cat. It is said, and this has even been covered by the Italian papers, that Larry spent his first two days in his new office sleeping (must be something in the local air) and even now only rouses himself to scratch indiscriminately at passers by. He refuses to leave the immediate suite of rooms where he is lodged, and may have come to regard this as the appropriate reaction to life in the public eye. He shows no inclination to chase rats (except as above) and perhaps finds such a course to be beneath his dignity.

But it is only now that I have come to realise what the problem is. The selection procedure. Just like the unconstitutional Coalition, Larry was pushed into office by sofa government, by an oligarchy of the political class deciding, irrespective of the public mood, that this was what was needed. He should have been made to submit to the popular vote.

On a First Past The Rat system.