Because of renovations to the Houses of Parliament (Palace of Westminster) mice are more visible. They have been disturbed. They have come out of their burrows and behind the walls and are now clambering over desks and munching on MPs’ cheese sandwiches.
Some members of Parliament are becoming jealous of the resident moggies at Number 10, the Foreign & Commonwealth Office, the Treasury and the Cabinet office. They all have resident mouse catching cats. It is time Parliament had their own but it has to be more than one cat. Houses of Parliament is an enormous complex of buildings. After all, it’s going to cost about £4 billion to repair and it will take about five years or more (or something astromical like that).
Personally, I’m a great fan of the idea of resident mouser moggies at the Houses of Parliament. Once again they will be high-profile cats. They will be working cat. They will be talked about and the profile of the domestic cat in the UK will go up which is something I have consistently fought for.
MP Stella Creasy had previously said:
“This is so unfair. When will this Parliament get its cats? We’ve got loads of mice (and some rats!) After all!”
MP Wes Streeting has asked for a cat.
“Lots of staffers are scaredy cats when it comes to mice. A parliamentary cat might not be a purrfect solution, but after a summer of silly season stories about the Tory leadership, this is definitely the Mogg we been looking for.”
Anna Turley MP likes the cost effectiveness of keeping resident rat and mouse catching moggies. She says that the cats would be far less expensive than conventional pest control which costs a fortune. She argues that nature should take its course and that there should be a couple of Parliamentary cats. Also (and she right on this) it would cheer the place up. Would the cats give the place a bit of soul as well? It might even make the MPs more productive and a lot of people think that they should be.
A herd of mice-eating cats needed at the Houses of Parliament
Battersea Dogs and Cats Home have previously supplied cats e.g. to the Foreign & Commonwealth Office but with respect to the Houses of Parliament their offer has been turned down on health and safety grounds. I’m not sure that I can understand this because, as mentioned, cats are already present in very large offices such as the Treasury.
Strictly speaking the only animals allowed in Parliament are guide dogs or security dogs. I think that it is time that the health and safety officials took a more enlightened approach to pest control at Parliament.
Source: various online newspapers.
I love this but after the renovations will the moggies be allowed to retain their residency there?
That actually is very enlightening. If they can’t resolve such a simple problem which every home owner has been able to take care of for thousands of years, how can we expect them to resolve matters of a much more complex nature? There you have it in a nutshell.