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It’s Acropolis Now for Rishi Sunak – politicalbetting.com
It’s Acropolis Now for Rishi Sunak – politicalbetting.com
Where do Britons think the Parthenon Sculptures / Elgin Marbles should be kept?In Britain: 15%In Greece: 49%Don't mind either way: 26%https://t.co/yrYpjDEuBb pic.twitter.com/B4aBAl0OLT
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Sunak is not competent.
You'll be fine, however. You've found your path, an on it you will go.
Last time around, Johnson pointed at Corbyn and said 'really?' And, spooked by how close the Jezaster and his mates had come to power, enough people shuddered, nodded, and voted Tory.
But this time, it will be Starmer pointing at Sunak, Truss and Johnson and saying 'really?' And I do not see what answer the Tories can give.
It may not get him a majority but my jaw will hit the floor if Labour aren't the largest party. Even if Starmer proves as useless on the stump as May - and it's hard to imagine he'll be as foolishly complacent as she was - the Tories have no credibility left at all.
https://www.tanea.gr/2023/11/28/greece/trolarisma-ston-sounak-gia-tin-akyrosi-tis-synantisis-me-mitsotaki-to-ekane-giati-katalathos-espase-ta-elgineia-marmara/
The problem with stuff like this is it alienates everyone who doesn't watch 12 hours of GB news per day. The motorists and pensioners messaging is much better given most of us are, or will soon be, one of either.
She didn't use the word, being naturally polite, but the gist of her views is that Sunak is a twat.
He wouldn’t try this pathetic behaviour with in his eyes a stronger more influential world leader . Of course the clueless clown forgot that Greece is part of the EU and any future agreements with the UK need unanimous support .
The problem here is a) even if people agree the marbles should not go back very few will care a great deal, and b) these spats are not supposed to escalate to full on rows, which can be damaging.
Cancelling meetings because a foreign leader said something utterly predictable, even if we accept the claim he'd said he would not, is just very disproportionate and looks weak.
Cosplay Maggie strikes again. The cartoon version of our greatest dead Prime Minister would have put her foot down forcefully. But in her case, including having the meeting to make Britain's Point Clear.
Rishi has been told that Maggie was Tough With Foreigners, but has neither the wit or heft to reproduce the moves convincingly.
Bloody stupid thing to fall out with a useful ally about.
The contrast between this competence and Sunak’s petulance is actually painful.
Just listened to the "BBC's Ramallah correspondent" who explained how unfair it was for the IDF to have arrested a fifteen year old girl for the perfectly understandable act, given the occupation of East Jerusalem, of trying to stab an IDF soldier with a pair of scissors.
Fair enough.
But why then did the Today presenter feel the need to say they had been in touch with the IDF for their version of events if their own correspondent was providing an unbiased report.
Poor woman probably had a knife to her throat while she was broadcasting.
This might be because the Greek Embassy reads the newspapers and saw that Nadine Dorries in her book, The Plot, described Dowden in unflattering terms.
I have never heard anyone talk for so long and say so little. Oliver used a hundred words when ten would do, and when he finished speaking I wasn’t the only one left inwardly groaning and wondering at the greatest mystery of Cabinet: how a man of so little discernible talent had risen so far.
While it would be reasonable for culturally significant objects to be returned and displayed safely and in context, others are more problematic. Not just the Benin Bronzes to Nigeria, which has very little international tourism, but also the Assyrian artefacts to Iraq.
There is too the issue that while we should prize artefacts of British origin, ones from further afield are necessary for a broader understanding of world cultures.
The Parthenon sculptures are so culturally significant that I think they should return, perhaps to help commemorate the bicentenary of us helping free the Greeks from Ottoman oppression. This would be either the 2027 anniversary of the battle of Navarino, or perhaps the 2030 Treaty of London by which Greek independence was formally recognised.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-67558465
That's her advertising budget sorted.
Haley is generally priced at:-
12/1 for the Presidency
8/1 - 10/1 for the GOP nomination
11/2 - 7/1 for the GOP vice-president nomination (Trump's running mate?)
Whether you can get on at these prices taken from Oddschecker is another question.
What is interesting though is the books (above) have Haley shortest to be the VP pick (and some on PB have wondered if she will be Trump's running mate). Not so on Betfair.
9/1 for the Presidency
13/2 for the GOP nomination
13/1 for GOP VP nomination.
The neurobiology of stress: Vulnerability, resilience, and major depression
https://www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/pnas.2312662120
Over the past few years, the perceived level of psychological stress has risen dramatically across the globe due to a combination of events including the long-lasting Covid-19 pandemic, civil unrest, escalation of political instability across the globe, and climate change that has triggered major environmental and economic perturbations. The consequences of this broad-scale increase in stress are only beginning to be appreciated, but evidence suggests that we are facing a second pandemic of mood and anxiety disorders, including major depression, anxiety, and posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD). This Special Issue entitled “The Neurobiology of Stress: Vulnerability, Resilience, and Major Depression” is intended to ask “How can science help?” Our hope is to initiate a broad discussion on the power of basic and clinical scientific tools to confront these challenges and to offer strategies for treatment and prevention...
Does this come from somewhere? The old culture warriors turning their sights on the next big thing?
https://twitter.com/ShaunLintern/status/1729497138013323481?t=RE9yVCG30RjgSrK55xNfHg&s=19
🎶I just died in your arms tonight🎶
https://twitter.com/Edmund_B_W/status/1729712180713451591
I guess we should be glad the the inquest system still works and that most people accept that institutional game playing stops once you have a dead person.
Most people.
I wonder if simply a fair chunk of people don’t really know what they are, and are responding to the situation as described in the question, without context of the apparently vast cultural and political significance some loons believe them to hold for Britain.
I do also wonder whether Rishi has reverse-Midas-touched the issue and folk assume that because he’s in favour of keeping them, it’s probably wrong.
Always be very suspicious of anyone trying to change words.
Iowa: who knows. Trump wins easily, but if Haley comes a good 2nd? Santis is looking like he is out of it in that case.
N Hampshire: Haley could win.
S Carolina: her home state.
There is a possible but very thin path for Haley via a fantastic start in early three states. If she can become the only not-Trump candidate, then just maybe he can be stopped from destroying the country.
Refugee camps on Greek islands are once again overcrowded
https://www.lemonde.fr/en/international/article/2023/10/07/refugee-camps-on-greek-islands-are-once-again-overcrowded_6155562_4.html#
And a return of the marbles would almost certainly lead to greater cultural artefact lending anyway.
In a similar way the Wellington Museum is filled with paintings from the former Spanish Royal collection donated as gratitude for the help in liberating the country from the French.
And in any case, returning them as a gesture of magnanimity has a value of its own.
GDP is a measure of economic activity so immigrants will help it increase if they do nothing but eat, sleep and shit.
GDP per capita is the measure that is important.
And more important than that is the ratio of wealth creation to wealth consumption.
I think the question in the poll is phrased in a fairly biased way, but the result does not surprise me.
I think it's "Cookies Law' again. This Governmwnt expresses rudely and performatively 'right wing' talking points in a way that discredits the right, without actually being or doing anything right wing.
'We looked very hard for a smoking gun linking technology and well-being and we didn't find it'
https://www.theregister.com/2023/11/29/internet_mental_health_study/
That's the competence of a shadow Chancellor who failed to predict a recession which happened.
So 'Parthenon sculptures' tells you rather more about them than 'Elgin marbles'.
This whole episode is weird. It's as though we can go back to behaving as though we were still an imperial power, dealing with foreign leaders as mild inconveniences.
While temperamentally that might appeal to to the Tory party, even most of Sunak's MPs are reportedly bemused by his stance, and can't understand what he's aiming to achieve.
A better solution however would be some form of loan arrangement as the British Museum is looking into
There is an attempt to argue (by partisans of the er... non-western world), that Philhellenism was a Western Imperialist Construct. And that the Greeks were ever so happy being part of the Sofa Empire.
For Biden.
Seems petty and childish by Rishi. All he had to do was say, politely, that he’d be prepared to talk to the British Museum.
On a separate, but perhaps related matter, as someone who is 5ft 6in, can we have an end to jokes about the PM’s height. Its quality, not quantity, which counts!
Colouring them to match the original would be fairly straightforward.
A few million quid - get tech billionaire to fund it. Bit like the Babbage Engine at the Science Museum - a Microsoft chap funded building the printer. Along with getting a copy of both the Engine and Printer for himself.
When we send Lord Cameron to China and everyone is demanding he discusses the treatment of the Uighur people we get a bit of nonsense about how of course he will mention it but in reality there is no way he does. If he shows up in Beijing and starts talking about the Uighur ps you can guarantee the meeting will be cancelled.
The terms of the meeting with the Greek PM were agreed beforehand where it was agreed that the marbles were not for discussion. The Greek PM should have said publicly that he was cancelling his trip to the UK and meeting Sunak because Sunak refuses to discuss the marbles. Instead he agreed the terms then reneged. It’s disingenuous as inevitably it will cause a furore.
I’m sure that if Erdogan was going to meet the Greek PM and it was agreed in advance that recognition of northern Cyprus was off the agenda and Erdogan started meeting Greek opposition leaders and discussing the matter then the meeting would be cancelled too.
So it was silly by Sunak but shitty behaviour by the Greek PM too.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cast_Courts_(Victoria_and_Albert_Museum)
Palmerston and Disraeli were unusual in being fairly pro-Turk. I thought it fascinating reading Guide Books on Crete recently, that were full of vitriol towards the Turks, while noting quaintly that Crete's Turkish (ie Greek Muslim) population "left" the island in the early 1900's.
There are a lot "sore loser" State laws that would make that difficult.
Applying your method to the Brexit referendum, only 37% of voters wanted to Leave - the important point is that even fewer wanted to Remain.
This story is ancient history. We already have another freshly manufactured Hail Mary Pass in from Chez Rishi this morning.
This Government is going to save the world by creating a new National Park in either a) The Cotswolds, b) The Chilterns or c) Dorset. Nothing to do with 'normally' Conservative areas needing to be shored up.
A slightly sticky wicket for Rishi, remembering that:
a) National Park funding has been cut by 40% in real terms by the Conservative Government since 2010.
b) Excise Duty on petrol and diesel has been cut by 40% in real terms by the Conservative Government since 2010.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-67538625
to imply as you do that he's responsible for the thefts which occurred.
Particularly as most of the thefts occurred long before he became chair of trustees.