Does Starmer’s cat JoJo take after Engels cat Tidlums

Cats and politicians are connected. After all Larry the 10 Downing St cat is a national celebrity.

Keir Starmer and family do have a cat called JoJo. In an interview in April he noted that his children were more friendly to the cat than they were to him. A familiar syndrome hardly unique to the Labour leader.

Tom Baldwin’s biography of Starmer makes reference to him extracting JoJo from a fight in the back garden and getting a scratch on this thumb as a result.

This does beg the question of whether JoJo is the terror of Kentish Town. Another cat who once lived nearby was known as the terror of Regents Park Rd:

After taking early retirement from the family firm in Manchester Engels moved to London and lived in Regents Park Rd until his death.

Writing to Karl Kautsky on 27th December 1891 Engels reported on the activities of his cat Tidlums:

Tidlums has grown into a large, majestic tomcat, the sultan of all the female cats in Regent’s Park Road and the terror of all competitors and rivals.