Larry the cat stays: 5 things to know about UK handover

Here are five things to know about Wednesday’s formal handover of prime ministerial power in Britain from David Cameron to Theresa May.
LUCKY 13?
Queen Elizabeth II sees them come, and sees them go.
As Britain’s monarch ascended to the throne in 1952, Winston Churchill was already the prime minister. Since then, the queen has given her royal seal of approval to a dozen prime ministers atop 16 governments. When May arrives at Buckingham Palace, she will become the 13th leader to receive Elizabeth’s royal assent in a private ceremony that marks the moment when May succeeds Cameron as leader of Britain’s year-old Conservative government.
DAVID’S DEMISE
First the queen bids a formal farewell to Cameron, Britain’s leader since 2010, who as part of his office has held weekly “private audiences” with Elizabeth. On Wednesday, he arrives to the palace as a leader, and leaves merely a lawmaker.
Cameron has represented the Oxfordshire district of Witney, west of London, in the House of Commons since 2001. Now he’s forecast to join those Conservative lawmakers lacking ministerial posts known as “backbenchers” who typically bray their approval of the prime ministers’ remarks from the background. But Cameron’s career is hardly over; he’s only 49 and can expect to make a killing on the global speaker’s circuit. For now, Witney gains a more full-time MP for the first time since 2005, when Cameron rose to the national stage as Conservative Party leader. He has already relinquished that post to May.
VOTERS MAY
Theresa May becomes prime minister thanks to support from a strong majority of the 330 Conservative lawmakers in the House of Commons. Nobody else had a vote on the matter, because in parliamentary systems the leader of the ruling party gains a preferential right to lead the nation. Given that British parliamentary terms last five years and Cameron’s second government was formed only last year, May and her Conservatives don’t need to face re-election until 2020. However the prime minister also wields the power to call an early election should May judge that to be in her party’s or nation’s interest.
MOVING DAY
Don’t let the door hit you on the way out, Mr. Cameron.
Prime ministers normally reside at 10 Downing Street, a Georgian residence with approximately 100 rooms just a few minutes’ walk from Parliament. But while Cameron regularly holds press conferences outside the iconic No. 10 door, he and his family actually live next door in No. 11.
Whereas the U.S. presidential system allows departing leaders more than two months to extricate themselves from the White House, Cameron, wife Samantha and their three children, ages 5 to 12, have had barely a day to clear out their home of the past six years.
The same company that moved the Camerons into Downing Street in 2010 arrived Tuesday to take them out again. Simply Removals says they contained the Camerons’ Downing Street possessions in 330 boxes, 30 rolls of tape and three rolls of bubble wrap.
LARRY MAY STAY
One family member is staying behind on Downing Street by mutual agreement: Larry the Cat.
The 9-year-old tabby is the government’s official Chief Mouser to the Cabinet Office, a tradition with its claws in the 16th century court of Henry VIII.
After TV crews repeatedly spotted mice sprinting across Cameron’s doorstep in 2011, the premier took his family to a south London animal shelter and picked Larry. The Mays and Camerons have decided that Larry should continue to keep ravaging the rodents of Downing Street. Larry spent much of Wednesday keeping watch on the press pack instead.