Perhaps Larry the Cat can just be keeper of the keys to 10 Downing Street.
Since Britons voted for Brexit — 10 years ago Tuesday — prime ministers have come and gone with startling speed. For most of that time, the keys were tossed from one Conservative to another, and another, and another, and another before finally ending up with Labour in 2024
One resident, however, has landed on his feet every time.
Larry the Cat, Downing Street’s chief mouser, has lived at No. 10 since 2011. He has outlasted six prime ministers, countless advisers, several political scandals and one national act of self-reinvention.
“If it carries on like this,” read a post on Monday from Larry’s famously mischievous social media account, “I’m going to stop making the effort to learn their names.”
Looking back over the past decade, it’s hard not to wonder whether the cat has been the most stabilizing presence in British politics. Here are Britain’s prime ministers since 2016, how they fared and how they fell.
Keir Starmer
July 2024 until sometime soon
Keir Starmer swept to power on a Labour landslide promising change and an end to Conservative chaos.
A former top prosecutor, Starmer was methodical, cautious and intensely disciplined. His achievement was transforming Labour from a party that was reeling after its 2019 defeat and stained by allegations of antisemitism against its former leader, Jeremy Corbyn, into a commanding victor in 2024.
But his victory contained a warning — though Labour won big, it did so with just over one-third of the popular vote. Since taking office, Starmer has faced criticism over policy reversals, a moribund economy and the rise of Nigel Farage’s populist Reform UK Party. He announced his resignation Monday morning.
Rishi Sunak
October 2022 to July 2024
Rishi Sunak was cast as the grown-up who could clean up the mess. A former financier and chancellor of the Exchequer, he was technocratic, careful and relentlessly focused on restoring economic credibility after the chaos of the short Liz Truss era. Markets calmed, and the government once again appeared functional.
But he was unable to turn the ship around. The British public was fed up with 14 years of often chaotic Conservative rule, and while Sunak may have steadied the ship, he couldn’t convince people to stay onboard.
Liz Truss
September 2022 to October 2022
Truss lasted just 49 days in office.
She arrived at Downing Street promising radical economic change. Markets hated it. Her government’s unfunded tax-cutting agenda triggered financial turmoil. The pound fell, and market confidence evaporated.
Her premiership ended so quickly that a British tabloid set up a live stream comparing her political survival to the shelf life of a lettuce. The lettuce won.
Boris Johnson
July 2019 to September 2022
Boris Johnson, one of the faces of the Brexit vote, came to power promising to break the deadlock over exiting the European Union that had destroyed Theresa May’s premiership.
He turned that promise into a three-word slogan, “Get Brexit done,” and won a landslide victory in 2019.
Charismatic, reckless and known to fib, Johnson connected with voters who don’t normally pay attention to politics. He finally delivered Britain’s departure from the E.U., but his covid-era leadership was plagued by scandals.
The most damaging was “Partygate,” the revelations that parties had taken place inside the government during lockdowns. Johnson was a politician who had survived scandal after scandal, but he finally ran out of lives.
Theresa May
July 2016 to July 2019
Theresa May inherited a country that voted for Brexit but had no idea how to extricate itself from the E.U. or how its restored sovereignty would work in practice.
A diligent and disciplined politician, she was famous for saying “Brexit means Brexit” no matter how difficult or seemingly contradictory the objectives seemed. The problem was, nobody could agree on what Brexit meant. Trapped between hard-line Brexit supporters and pro-European lawmakers who feared severe economic damage, May spent years trying to square that circle.
After calling a snap election in 2017 and losing her parliamentary majority, May’s authority steadily drained away. She discovered that Brexit was impossible to execute in a way that satisfied everyone.
David Cameron
May 2010 to July 2016
David Cameron was undone by a crisis of his own making.
The smooth-talking Conservative called the Brexit referendum as a way to settle the civil war inside his party. He believed he would win. Instead, he discovered that antiestablishment anger, distrust of elites and nationalism were stronger than he anticipated.
An affable politician, Cameron will forever be known for rolling the dice and losing. He resigned the morning after the referendum — Britons voted 52 percent to 48 percent to leave the E.U.
As he turned away from the lectern outside Downing Street, a live mic caught him whistling a short tune. Britain had just voted for Brexit, the markets were in turmoil, and his premiership was over, yet he appeared relaxed — or maybe relieved: His speech was over.
Cameron returned for an encore as foreign secretary in Sunak’s Cabinet, from November 2023 to July 2024,
Larry the Cat
Larry arrived at Downing Street, which is the official residence and workplace of the prime minister, in 2011 after a black rat was seen scurrying outside the building during a live broadcast on the BBC. Officially, Larry is the “chief Mouser to the Cabinet Office.” Unofficially, he has become the closest thing Britain has to a permanent resident at No. 10.
Larry has survived Brexit, Partygate, a pandemic, six prime ministers and one lettuce. He once even chased off a fox. At this point, perhaps the keys should be jangling around his neck.
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