HE WAS a serial killer who attracted fan mail and whose feline nature so offended Cherie Blair that she threw him out; but last week he ran out of lives: Humphrey the Downing Street cat died.

Humphrey, aged about 18, died at the home of a Cabinet Office official who took him in when he “retired” from active Downing Street service.

The cat, who wandered into No 10 as a stray in 1990 while Margaret Thatcher was in office, was the subject of questions in 1997 after he disappeared from Downing Street amid claims that Cherie Blair, who regards cats as unhygienic, had ordered him to be put down.

Alastair Campbell’s formidable presentational skills were brought to bear and a hasty photocall with Mrs Blair and a back-in-favour Humphrey was arranged. It was to be the end of Humphrey’s government service, however, and he had to quit public life. When he was retired to a “stable home environment where he can be looked after”, Humphrey was known to have a kidney infection.

During his Downing Street years, Humphrey also played a crucial role in ridding Whitehall of unwanted guests. In a 120-page file released by the Cabinet Office last July, one official wrote: “He has caught numerous mice and the odd rat. By a perhaps unfair comparison, Rentokil have been operating for years and have never caught anything.”

The same civil servant, in answering whether Humphrey had ever given birth, replied: “No, he has been positively vetted.” The file added: “He is a workaholic who spends nearly all his time at the office, has no criminal record, does not socialise a great deal or go to many parties and has not been involved in any sex or drug scandals that we know of.”

A Downing Street spokesman confirmed last night that the Prime Minister had been notified of Humphrey’s demise.

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