Philip Cowley

Don’t believe in tribal politics? Take a look at how people respond to Downing Street’s cats

One important staffing decision David Cameron took early in his premiership was to fill the post of Chief Mouser, which had been vacant since the demise of its previous occupant, Sybil, at the height of the global financial crisis. Defying their party’s commitment to lean government, the Conservatives made two appointments: Larry and Freya. These cats are the latest in a long line of Downing Street felines, stretching back at least to Churchill’s time in office. Incumbents often hold the role for a long time: Mrs Thatcher’s cat, Humphrey (allegedly named after a fictional civil servant with similar feline cunning), remained in office through the rest of her term, and that of her successor John Major, finally retiring from service in 10 Downing Street during Tony Blair’s first term in office.

Like all Whitehall civil servants, the Downing Street cats are resolutely apolitical, serving at the pleasure of Her Majesty’s government, whichever political tribe takes the helm. But this is not how they are seen by the electorate. In an experiment run with the survey company YouGov, a representative sample of voters were shown a picture of the redoubtable Humphrey randomly varying whether he was described as Margaret Thatcher’s cat or Tony Blair’s cat and asked to say whether they liked or disliked him. The figure below shows how the net approval of Humphrey the cat (the share who like Humphrey minus the share who dislike him) varies depending on the partisanship of the respondents doing the rating, and the Prime Minister with whom Humphrey is associated.

hat

Humphrey comes out with a strongly positive net rating (unlike most of the politicians he served) and his overall rating among all voters is not much affected by association with Thatcher or Blair.

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