Yahoo News London Mayor urged to hire cat after mice fall on schoolchildren's heads
The final straw may have been when a mouse fell at the feet of a party of schoolchildren visiting London’s City Hall.
The reaction among the startled children prompted London Assembly members to call for the capital’s Mayor Sadiq Khan to do the obvious thing - get a cat.
Labour Assembly member Tom Copley asked Mr Khan: “Given the problem with mice in the building will you consider getting a cat for City Hall, preferably rehoming one from Battersea Dogs and Cats Home?”
Staff at the steel and glass building overlooking the Thames have said that mice currently have the run of City Hall
One source said workers “can’t leave food out - even locked in drawers, as the mice get at it”.
And if Number 10 Downing Street, the Foreign Office cat, the Treasury and the Cabinet Office have all adopted cats to chase down mice, then why not the Mayor’s own domain?
Mr Copley told The Telegraph: “There is a serious problem with mice at City Hall. One fell out of the ceiling in front of a group of school children quite recently. You can't leave food out anywhere.”
“The solution to this would be to get one or more cats.Support for the cat would come down more to like or dislike of cats rather than party allegiance.
From meerkats to monkeys, penguins to pelicans, like so many cities on @BBCEarth London is home to a collection of creatures. #PlanetEarth2pic.twitter.com/ay1LzVkixs
— Sadiq Khan (@SadiqKhan) December 11, 2016
“Obviously there is now a series of cats within the political buildings, so why not City Hall?”
Andrew Boff, a Conservative member of the London Assembly, said: “I’m fully in favour of this idea and in fact I’d go a step further and recommend a cat for each political group to give it real cross purr-ty support.
“The problem here, however, is that, as is well known, cats are mostly Tory.”
Green Assembly Member Sian Berry endorsed the idea, if not Mr Boff’s political sentiments.
“I’ve lived with a diligent mouser and he was great. A cat once even won the Dickin Medal for bravery after being wounded while on mousing duty on the HMS Amethyst,” she said.
“If having a resident cat is good enough for Whitehall I don’t see why City Hall couldn’t adopt one from Battersea Cats and Dogs Home – it would certainly earn its keep!”
Mr Khan is due to give an official response to the request for a mouser later this month.
In the meantime his office simply said: “The mice have certainly given us paws for thought”.
