Ephraim Hardcastle

AS Prime Minister, Margaret Thatcher didn’t complain about her depiction as a Nazi in the satirical TV series Spitting Image. Nor did she object to her Cabinet colleagues Norman Fowler and Norman Tebbit being portrayed, respectively, as Jack the Ripper and a skinhead. But she did get Diplomatic Service head Patrick Wright to veto the lampooning of the Iranian leader, Ayatollah Khomeini, on the puppet show in 1987. In his memoir, Behind Diplomatic Lines, Lord Wright, 86, recalls telephoning the head of the then Independent Broadcasting Association warning that the Ayatollah’s appearance ‘could make an already difficult and dangerous situation explosive’. The joke was dropped. DEFENCE Minister Tobias Ellwood announces that the new National Memorial to Victims of Overseas Terrorism – entitled Still Water – will be dedicated in May at the National Memorial Arboretum in Staffordshire. Surely the Innocent Victims’ Memorial at Westminster Abbey – unveiled by the Queen in 1998 – aptly fulfils this function? Prince Harry laid a wreath there commemorating the 30 Britons murdered on a Tunisian beach in 2015. SCOTTISH Tory leader Ruth Davidson, 39, pictured, delivered the Immortal Memory speech at Giffnock Synagogue’s Burns Supper. She got a rousing cheer when she remarked: ‘Ladies, if you want to light up a man’s eyes, shine a torch in his ears.’ At least she didn’t trash the memory of frisky ladies’ man Rabbie, accused by former Makar Liz Lochhead of being akin to a 18th century Harvey Weinstein. FORMER ITN newscaster Sir Trevor McDonald, 78, an ardent opponent of the death sentence, says after interviewing, for an ITV documentary, an Indiana State Prison death row inmate who boasts of murdering 30 people: ‘I do not believe in the state killing people. But if you harmed my kids (he has three) I’d probably want to string you up myself. So you can have ambivalent feelings about these things.’ LIB Dem leader Sir Vince Cable, 74, says it’s right that Rupert Murdoch has been prevented from acquiring full ownership of Sky TV: ‘I respect the judgment, I’m sure it’s right.’ Sir Vince was stripped of responsibility for media policy when Business Secretary after bragging to two undercover female journalists that he had ‘declared war’ on Murdoch. APROPOS Sir Vince, he tweets: ‘To mark his first year in office, I would like to remind Donald Trump that he will never be welcomed on a state visit to the UK by the Lib Dems.’ As if Sir Vince will ever be in a position to welcome anyone to the UK on a state visit. His predecessor, David Steel, gave Romania’s dictator, Nicolae Ceausescu, a black Labrador puppy named Corbu after his 1978 visit. The hound was subsequently driven around Bucharest in a limousine, with his own motorcade, had a luxury villa and was appointed a colonel in the Romanian army.