"Larry – the indolent, the unmovable, the irrepressibly charming – just might be the most dependable political figure in the U.K. today." (Camila Domonoske, writing for NPR)...
LARRY: THE DOWNING STREET CAT
Larry’s the Cat at the Cabinet’s door.
His title – I ought to have told you before –
Is Mouser in Chief, but he’s not one to boast
So “Larry” suffices, in spite of his post.
His jacket is tabby, he’s sleek and well-fed,
With a Chippendale chair of his own for a bed.
Yet he was in his youth quite the wildest of strays –
And has put on no airs since his rescue cat days.
His nominal mandate he glibly defies:
He’d far rather quarrel with beasts his own size.
So he’s less of a terror to mice and to rats
(Which infest Number 10) than to neighbouring cats.
When Freya strode onto the Treasury scene
Her stand for austerity stirred up his spleen;
While Palmerstone, Mouser for Foreign Affairs,
On account of his boss, of whom Larry despairs,
Can barely miaow without broaching a fight –
A modus vivendi is nowhere in sight.
But his fiercest encounter, if all goes to plan,
Will be finding himself in paw’s-reach of that man!
“I have played,” so he says, “my obligatory part;
And the nation has taken me into its heart.
I’ve been pictured patrolling the hallways of power,
With an air I am told is endearingly dour,
And sat on the former Prime Minister’s lap
Just to stifle the rumours that we’d had a scrap.
Both tabloid and broadsheet are quick to make space
To give politics more of a felinised face –
And neither are slow to put words on my lips
(Which is brave, when you think that I’m known to tear strips).
I have published book one of my personal tale,
And I’ve people who tweet and reply to my mail...
And the limelight’s a bore, but a boon to my plan:
I’ll have all eyes on me when I meet with that man.”
Then, if someone will stand him a couple of beers,
He will tell of his socio-political fears.
For while he is only too keenly aware
Of the charge of neutrality civil aides bear,
He is deeply concerned with the state of the State –
And the wider world too, for that matter, of late.
As the NHS teeters, and living costs soar,
And refugee children are turned from the door,
(On which Scotland are pounding to make an escape,
Fearing Brexit will land us in even worse shape);
While sentiments veer to the dark end of right,
With barely a credible challenge in sight,
He has seen his employer court tyrants and crooks –
And haste an election to fasten her hooks!
And he'll say, as he drums on the bar with his claws,
"Well, Britain is certainly not what it was.
I’m paid to be cute but I’ll do what I can:
It might just be possible, with a good plan,
For one ballsy neuter
To rescue the future
By teaching a lesson or two to that man!”
C. A. Whitnall, 2017 ... with apologies to Old Possum.
Open your mouth for the mute, for the rights of all who are destitute. Open your mouth, judge righteously, defend the rights of the poor and needy. – Proverbs 31:8-9.
[Thumbnail image cc from Her Majesty's Government via Wikimedia Commons.]
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