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I have just laughed my way through The Larry Diaries (Downing Street: The First 100 Days as Chief Rat Catcher). Larry is the cat who was hired to deal with the rat problem after a rat was seen running across the doorstep of No 10 during a live news broadcast.

His first 100 days in office, when he spends much of his time sitting on the Larry chair, in Sam’s lingerie drawer or on the edge of the bath conversing with David Cameron (DC) are hilarious insights into some of the crises and events of the spring of 2011 culminating with the royal wedding. Gramps (Murdoch) and Rebekah Brooks feature large in his accounts of the comings and goings of No 10.

Larry was a stray, retrieved from the Battersea Dogs & Cats Home and his Cockney voice and wry sense of humour are ideal vehicles for the high politics seen from the point of view of an underling. It really is Laugh Out Loud in places. Larry includes in his narratives the incidents we have read of in the press, like his scratching of reporter Lucy Manning and his rapport with Barack Obama.

And the rats? Larry slowly gets the hang of what is going on. These are no ordinary London rats, they are wily northerners. An attempt to make a deal and persuade them to move to the House of Commons fails but a coalition seems the ideal way to stay in No 10 and Larry’s version of a coalition is a delightful solution.

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