By Simon Hughes - Twas the night before Christmas, when all through the house not a creature was stirring, not even a mouse. This was due to the diligent work of Larry, the No 10 cat and Chief Mouser for the Cabinet Office. Larry, who was comfortably curled up on his cushion on the window ledge, was surprised therefore when a ghostly apparition appeared in the main reception area just behind the famous Downing Street black door. His ears pricked up as the apparition moaned softly “No ifs, no buts. No ifs, no buts.” It was the ghost of a past promise about Heathrow expansion made back in 2009 and the anguish in the softly spoken words made Larry shiver – which just goes to show what an incredibly gifted and empathetic cat he is.
It reminded him of the shouting he’d heard earlier in the year after a courier had delivered that report from the Airports Commission. There had been some quite bad language used and Larry had been happy that the children were not around to hear such bad words. The custodian on door duty had agreed with him. “I’d stay out of sight Larry” he’d advised, “in case someone decides it’s time to kick the cat.” As a secret but avid listener to the BBC Radio 4 Today programme, Larry suspected that it was the little banker bloke Howard that might get a kicking, but he kept his counsel to himself and went and hide upstairs out of harm’s way.
Thinking back on all this in the stillness of the night, Larry found himself wondering why humans liked kicking things so much. There had then been a lot of talk about “kicking it into the tall grass.” This confused Larry a lot as the only grass he was familiar with in the garden was beautifully manicured. Mind you once, when he’d wandered out and had a look at St James’s Park, he had spotted some quite tall clumps of grassy stuff in the lake. He stayed away from all that though as the geese were far too frisky for his liking.
It reminded him of the talk that the nice Scottish man who used to work for Man United (his favourite team) had given to the policy team about leadership. He’d used a picture of geese flying in formation to illustrate how a team works best, even in nature. You must have a leader ready to take over and lead from the front. Perhaps this was why the Boss had been so annoyed the other day when the lady from the CBI during a radio interview had suggested that there was a lack of leadership about some place called Heathrow. As he dozed off again Larry found himself wondering if the ghost of the past promise he’d just seen was in any way connected with this Heathrow place. That young chap Zac had been in recently and he’d been going on about it too. Humans – they were very funny things Larry thought.
Meanwhile, high in the dark clear skies over London, what should appear? Yes a miniature sleigh and eight tiny reindeer. More rapid than eagles, his coursers they came and their little old driver whistled and shouted as he called them by name. At which point air traffic control pointed out that they were full and he’d best bugger off to Luton. So he did and there were no Christmas presents that year for anyone that had asked for a final decision to be made about airport expansion in the UK. Happy Christmas to all, and to all a good night.
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