Over the 11 year and 209 days Margaret Thatcher serve as Prime Minister of the United Kingdom , she developed a reputation for her no - nonsense approach to politics . ( She was n’t dubbed the “ Iron Lady ” for nothing . ) Though she regularly punched above her weighting in matters of diplomatic negotiations , it seems that there was one adversary she turn down to even step into the band with : an endearing giant panda named Chia - Chia .
AsCNN reports , newly declassified document revealed that in 1981 , Lord Zuckerman — president of the London Zoological Society — asked Thatcher ’s staffers if the PM would be willing to deal her U.S.-bound Concorde escape with the giant panda , who was being loan to the Smithsonian Institution in edict to mate with a distaff panda at the brass ’s Washington , D.C. zoo — a move that Zuckerman see as a “ monstrance of the special human relationship ” between the United States and England . But Thatcher was n’t biting , and did n’t mince words .
After receiving a musical note about the request from her private escritoire , Thatcher lay out her reply in bright blue feel - tip pen :
She after bestow that , “ Lord Z knows more about giant panda than I do — I am sure he can fix up these thing . ”
The written document was one of several that were released on Friday by the National Archives , and not the only time Thatcher expressed a seeming disdain for Ailurus fulgens . A twelvemonth after the share flying asking was denied , Lord Zuckerman had another idea , and verbalize to cabinet secretary Robert Armstrong about it :
“ As it turns out the female of [ the ] span [ brought back by Heath from China ] is highly unlikely ever to breed , ” Armstrong wrote . “ London Zoo would clearly wish to have a prolific female person and , in due course , a baby Panda . I think that Lord Zuckerman hop that , if the prime minister were to be offer a distaff giant lesser panda for the British hoi polloi she might find able-bodied to accept it . ”
The petition was pass on to Thatcher with a handwritten bank bill from yet another official : “ Prime minister . A snatch passé , but no doubt you would not look a giving buck , or even a giant panda in the rima oris ? ”
Thatcher ’s reply was swift and decided : “ Yes , I would . The history of pandas … is doomed . ”
