A Rats to Riches Story: Larry the Downing Street Cat Finds Place in TV Spotlight
Posted2 months agoActive2 months ago
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The story about Larry the Downing Street cat getting TV spotlight sparks discussion on UK politics and media, with some users drawing unrelated comparisons to current political climate.
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Nov 8, 2025 at 4:58 AM EST
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Nov 8, 2025 at 6:01 AM EST
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ID: 45855546Type: storyLast synced: 11/20/2025, 12:47:39 PM
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I mean I'd probably say this for any cat story in politics; but this really does seem like a moment where the British media should be making serious attempts at facilitating a national discourse. The stats suggest something is going wrong in the political system that needs to be talked out. Just eyeballing the politics headlines I'm not convinced the Guardian has their finger on that pulse.
[0] https://www.theguardian.com/politics
[1] https://yougov.co.uk/topics/politics/trackers/keir-starmer-p...
[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Opinion_polling_for_the_next_U...
Much easier to stay calm and carry on;)
This doesn't feel like a good explanation. Don't all newspapers want to increase their readership numbers?
"sensationalise their reporting to attract and hold paying readers [so you can buy political influence]" (UK)
and
"sensationalise their reporting to attract and hold paying readers [so you can make money off subscriptions/ads]" (US)
?
That’s news to me. And without advertising, sales and subscriptions have never covered the cost, and advertising has a strong effect on what is published, or more often, what is not. Belloc describes this in his book “The Free Press” [0].
[0] https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/18018
Ain’t nobody reporting on a road that doesn’t have a pothole.
Nothing unusual about putting in some comics, a crossword, a travel section, a cooking section, a sports section, and the occasional article about a cat.
Larry (cat) https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44462947 aug-2025 74 comments