Peter Rhodes: I like this year's UK Eurovision entry

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I WROTE a few days ago about a punch-up I witnessed between a pheasant and a squirrel. A reader recalls seeing something similar involving a hare and a hedgehog. He says the hedgehog won on points.

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IN its campaign to convince us that SNP politicians elected to Westminster would be a savage bunch of claymore-wielding blue-faced Braveheart commies, the Mail on Sunday introduced us to one former Marxist, George Kerevan, the candidate for East Lothian. Proof of Kerevan's alleged loony-Leftness comes in a statement he made that the UK has "a disastrous economy whose banking system is an organised criminal conspiracy." Seriously, does anyone disagree with that?

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IT'S that overworked H-word again. Harrison Ford, finding himself in difficulties several hundred feet above California, wisely decided not to crash his aircraft into the highway, the sea or a block of flats but to aim for a nice, soft golf course. For this he is hailed as a hero. How? Why?

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IT is reported that the UK is sending another 60 troops to Iraq "to help deliver training." The official line is that our lads will be safely to the rear, showing the Kurds how to use machine guns. I recently met a politician who has connections in Iraq. He tells me the closer you get to the front line, the more English accents you hear.

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LORD Baker grabs the headlines for floating the bonkers prediction of a Conservative-Labour coalition after the General Election. As a matter of record, this is one of my bonkers predictions, first aired in this column on October 23 last year and repeated on January 28: "The first Conservative / Labour coalition may be less than a decade away." You ignored it here first.

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THERE are two big surprises in Banished (BBC2). The first is that Auntie Beeb goes to the other end of the world, builds a penal colony, assembles a fine team of actors, dresses them in period uniforms and authentic convict rags – and does all this apparently without reading the script and realising Banished is a hopeless, unbelievable yarn with a storyline as leaky as an incontinent koala. The other big surprise, in a series utterly dedicated to 18th century reality, is the terrifying flash of glacier-white teeth in the middle of Elizabeth's (MyAnna Buring) grimy face. The action may be set in New South Wales in 1788 but those flashing showbiz gnashers are pure Hollywood. You'd think the make-up department would be able to tone them down.

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ED Miliband promises that a future Labour government would legislate to make TV debates a permanent feature of general election campaigns. He declares: "These debates belong to the people, not the prime minister of the day." Fine words. But just as there is a right to vote or not to vote, so there is a right to debate or not to debate. We gave up forcing people to speak when we banned thumbscrews and the rack.