(Nov. 13) -- British media were purring with satisfaction Friday over a kerfuffle in Canada over a cat.
It all started Thursday night when Canada's transport minister, John Baird, sent a text message to a friend: "Thatcher has died."
But it wasn't the Iron Lady who had passed away; it was the Iron Kitty.
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Oli Scaff, Getty Images
Margaret Thatcher is 84 and still very much alive, despite rumors in Canada to the contrary. Those rumors were sparked when a government minister sent a text message announcing the death of "Thatcher" -- his cat.
Baird was announcing the death of his beloved pet, a 16-year-old tabby named Thatcher. Baird's friend got the message while at a black-tie party in Toronto for Conservative Party members, The Guardian reported.
As the text was transmitted from BlackBerry to BlackBerry at the dinner, attendees jumped to the not-unnatural conclusion that Margaret Thatcher, the former British prime minister who remains a hero to many Conservatives, had died.
For the record, Baroness Thatcher, 84, is still very much alive.
As the rumor spread, Dimitri Soudas, an aide to Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper, was discreetly dispatched to draft an official statement to mark the passing, the BBC said.
Somewhere along the line, Soudas got the bright idea to call London for details. Buckingham Palace and 10 Downing Street were both very surprised to learn that the Canadian government thought Lady Thatcher was dead. And Soudas ended up a little red-faced.
"If the cat wasn't dead, I'd have killed it by now," he is reported to have said.
The mix-up delighted the British press, however. "Thatcher dies – that's moggy, not Maggie," The Guardian said, using the British colloquialism for a common house cat.
Thatcher the cat, by the way, was named after Margaret Thatcher.
