<center><a href="http://www.suffolkgazette.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/09/larry-downing-street-cat-and-hedgehog.jpg"><img src="http://www.suffolkgazette.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/09/larry-downing-street-cat-and-hedgehog.jpg" alt="Larry the Downing Street Cat and Colin the hedgehog" width="620" height="413" class="aligncenter size-full wp-image-4740" /></a></center><br><br>

<b>By Our Political Staff

Larry the Downing Street cat has a new friend vying for the world's attention - a friendly hedgehog called Colin.</b>

The prickly beast was given to the Prime Minister's residence after being rescued from a pond by children at a Suffolk school.


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The pupils at Little Brimmer Primary School nurded Colin back to health after his watery mishap, and when one of them wrote to Prime Minister Theresa May asking what they should do with him, she wrote back and said: "Bring him to live here with Larry!"

The youngsters were thrilled, and eight of them traveled with head teacher James Peat to London on Monday to drop lucky Colin off.

He is tame and happily spends hours on the step to Number 10, a spot normally patrolled by Larry the Downing Street cat.

A Downing Street spokesman said: "The two of them actually get on very well. Larry has had some scraps with Palmerston, the moggy bought in to catch mice at the neighbouring Foreign Office, but he seems quite content to be with Colin. Perhaps the spikes made him see sense and back off.

"There is now a joke doing the rounds of the cabinet office: What's the difference between Colin and Downing Street? One as pricks on the outside, the other on the inside!"

<center><a href="http://www.suffolkgazette.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/09/hedghog.jpg"><img src="http://www.suffolkgazette.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/09/hedghog.jpg" alt="Colin the hedgehog" width="300" height="168" class="aligncenter size-full wp-image-4741" /></a><i>Colin the hedgehog</center></i><br><br>

The spokesman added that the Prime Minister's car, and those of ministers and visiting dignitaries, have been ordered to watch out for Colin should he be scratching around for slugs in the road.

Little Brimmer school head Mr Peat said: "The children were delighted to have made Colin the world's most famous hedgehog. It's a real coup for the school, which got some bad press last year when the <a href="http://www.suffolkgazette.com/news/children-blue-paint/">old caretaker accidentally dyed some of the pupils blue</a>."

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