Supersonic panda vetoed by No 10

A PLAN for Margaret Thatcher to take a giant panda with her by Concorde to the US to mate with one there was dropped.

An aide suggested the idea as a way of improving the special relationship. But while the prime minister was amused, she said in a 1981 note: ‘I am not taking a panda with me.’ She added that pandas and politicians were not ‘happy omens’.

China gave pandas to a string of world leaders in the 1970s who then lost power.