The potential for damage to the Prime Minister's image was not missed by his office, with a spokesman issuing a statement on Friday night saying: "Totally untrue. He is very popular with everyone in the building and we all get on purr-fectly well."
Downing Street observers, however, say d'Ancona is absolutely correct that Larry - whose efficacy as a mouser has been questioned since he joined Downing Street - is not a family favourite.
"The cat is indeed well looked after," one said on Saturday. "He has a pile of blankets on the window sill just by the pigeon holes for mobile phones [at the entrance to No 10] - and likes the cops and Ed Llewellyn [chief of staff].
"But the Camerons themselves are not fans."
Larry is the latest in a long line of official mousers, with the first cat appointed to guard the Treasury during the reign of Henry VIII.
The most famous official mouser was Humphrey, adopted as a stray during Baroness Thatcher's last year in office and named after Sir Humphrey Appleby, the fictional civil servant in Yes Minister.
Humphrey left office in 1997 amid reports that Tony Blair's wife Cherie was not fond of cats.
In a damage limitation exercise, Mrs Blair posed for photographs with Humphrey, but he was quietly retired to the countryside a few months later.
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