Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn has taken to social media to tweet a photo of himself with his feline friend El Gato (the cat), in honor of International Cat Day, observing a long tradition of British politicians’ love for furry pets

Corbyn, who hasn’t given his cat an official name but refers to as El Gato, the Spanish word for cat, took to Twitter on Thursday to share the pic and promote his party’s Animal Welfare plan on International Cat day.

We’ve got a purrfect plan to protect all domestic pets.







Happy #InternationalCatDay! We’ve got a purrfect plan to protect all domestic pets. Check out our animal welfare plan 👉🐱https://t.co/pAkt0hArIxpic.twitter.com/4ZxbyfRizm — The Labour Party (@UKLabour) August 8, 2019

It hasn’t just been the Labour leader getting all excited on behalf of his feline mate: PM Boris Johnson has also tweeted a picture with him and Larry the 10 Downing Street cat, greeting his followers with “...happy #InternationalCatDay to our Chief Mouser…”

So we’ve had an image of Larry, but where is his No 10 rival, Palmerston? The two had a ‘famous’ clash back in July 2016 outside the Foreign Office, while Johnson was foreign secretary.

The Telegraph reported at the time that Larry had sustained an injury to his paw as a result of the altercation. Perhaps the two had fallen out over Brexit.

Perhaps the most famous of British lawmakers to have fallen in love with cats though, was Britain’s World War II PM Winston Churchill, who had a genuine love for them, according to his wife.

The most famous cat that he owned was a big grey called Nelson. Churchill spoke very highly of him, saying “Nelson is the bravest cat I ever knew. I once saw him chase a huge dog out of the Admiralty. I decided to adopt him and name him after our great Admiral….”

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