A third cat has joined Whitehall's team of mousers with the arrival of Gladstone at the Treasury.
Like Larry the Downing Street cat and Palmerston of the Foreign Office, the black cat is a former stray adopted from Battersea Cats and Dogs Home.
Amid mounting speculation that Larry and Palmerston are engaged in a turf war, Gladstone's official Instagram page describes him as an animal with "catitude".
And the 18-month old domestic short hair wasted no time in getting involved in the apparent spat.
A caption to a photo of Gladstone in a cat carrier reads: "Me on my first day at my new home. The humans had to keep me in this cage in case I ran down the street and tormented some other mouser called 'Larry'. Personally, I've never heard of him. #movingday."
Named after former prime minister and chancellor William Ewart Gladstone, his profile also describes him as "the most popular colleague at Her Majesty's Treasury", where he catches mice and "receives cuddles".
After a recent "fracas" with Palmerston, Larry had to be treated by a vet after developing a limp in his front right paw.
It was unclear whether Palmerston was responsible but the Foreign Office's "diplomog" has been pictured in recent days being evicted from No 10 and squaring up to Larry.
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereComments are closed on this article