A highly efficient former Downing Street worker has died of kidney failure eight years after being forced into retirement without a pension in what is believed to be a vendetta by a member the Blair family. Reports are that Cherie Booth, a highly paid human rights lawyer and part-time judge, AKA Mrs Blair, demanded that he be sacked and banished from Downing Steet. In an otherwise exemplary career, he had briefly gone missing a few years earlier but returned to active duty after being found unidentified in a nearby hospital. His death last week was officially announced by a Downing Street spokesman in an obvious attempt to imply that there is regret among the Prime Minister’s family at his passing.
With the recent scandals over a minister and her husband’s huge mortgages allegedly paid by a “gift” from Berlusconi and concealed multi-million pound loans to the Labour Party from people later nominated for peerages, one has to wonder whether this reminder of an early disgraceful episode in Blair’s tenure of Downing Street will be the final nail in the coffin of his premiership.
An obituary from the BBC outlines some of Humphrey’s career:
Humphrey was adopted by Number 10 after wandering into the building as a stray while Margaret Thatcher was PM in 1989.
He moved out six months after Labour’s 1997 general election win, with Tony Blair’s wife Cherie denying reports her dislike for the animal was to blame.
Official questions were asked in the House of Commons about Humphrey’s absence after his departure from Downing Street in 1997.
A Conservative MP demanded proof that the moggy – sometimes given the nickname Chief Mouser to the Cabinet Office – was still alive.
Downing Street said Humphrey had been suffering from a kidney complaint.
The media were later invited to a South London property, where Humphrey was photographed, hostage-style, with copies of the day’s newspapers.
He had also gone missing while John Major was in Downing Street.
At the time it was thought he had died.
But he returned after staff at a Westminster medical college read his obituary and realised the cat that had made his way into their building was, in fact, Humphrey.
Humphrey was named after Sir Humphrey Appleby, the senior civil servant in the classic BBC comedy series “Yes Minister” and “Yes Prime Minister”. Reports that he had a near fatal encounter with President Clinton’s armoured car during his visit were also denied. His last years were spent in retirement in the home of a Cabinet Office worker. His official allowance to pay for food etc would have stopped when he left work.
R.I.P. Humprey, shown here at the peak of his career.
