Categories
Losing your marbles – politicalbetting.com
Losing your marbles – politicalbetting.com
Ahead of the Greek PM's visit to the UK tomorrow, most Britons think the Elgin Marbles should be returned to GreeceReturn to Greece: 53%Keep in Britain: 24%https://t.co/JRQedtTVfi pic.twitter.com/SOshhXJA5Z
0
This discussion has been closed.
Comments
But yes, there is a reasonable case that they should go back to Greece.
As a father, I get it. But as someone who wants people to believe in public service again, it’s a setback.
https://x.com/RepGregLandsman/status/1863591569363804388
And once the principle is established the entire British Museum will be dispersed and dismantled
It’s down to the British Museum led by that fine patriot George Osborne.
Make a virtue of a poor deal.
But laser raster scanning or photogrammetry ...
https://www.3d-fossils.ac.uk/home.html
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/business/2024/12/02/jaguar-barbie-pink-concept-electric-car-leaked-online/
I replied to @Taz at the end of the last thread and repeat my comments here
In all honesty I did not expect a Starmer led government to sideline a Blair style government and go left with policies that seriously undermine business in favour of unions and public sector, nor declare war on pensioners, farmers, small businesses and even increase students fees
As I have commented previously the '14 year mantra' worked but the real problems we have today came from covid and the war in Ukraine which has seen most governments fall that were in office during that period
There is no doubt the conservatives were out of time, and whilst I did not expect great things from Starmer his performance together with Reeves since winning the election has been abject and is reflecting in public opinion and business surveys, not least with today's announcement in the fall in consumer spending in November
Furthermore, the IFS publicly rebuked both main parties before the election that they were not acknowledging the state of the economy, and whilst there was a deficit left to Labour nearly half of the 22 billion they repeat daily was a result from the above inflation pay rises to the doctors and train drivers
Starmer, like Sunak, is not a politician and no matter how many relaunches he comes up with, the electorate will not change their mind on him unless and until the changes he promises become apparent and as he says he wants 10 years his problem is the electorate want to see results far quicker
I would just say I do respect the Labour supporters on here who do acknowledge this has been an unexpected poor start and are not in denial, but hope that in time Starmer will be seen more favourable
However, in a few weeks everything is thrown up in the air with the arrival of Trump with unforceable consequences, not just for the UK, but all around the world
When I woke this morning to the news Biden had pardoned his son I just felt a great sense of despair for the US and integrity in politics which has all but vanished, and we will all lose from it
Levelling up and all that jazz.
Also, you have changed your view from 'tolerance' to 'religious and ethnic tolerance' - and the latter is very debatable - just ask the Kurds.
I'm not 'cheerleading' the unseating of Assad. I'm saying that, unlike you and HYUFD, I don't see him as the future of Syria, because his enormous crimes are similar to those of his 'enemies'. Whereas you, as ever, cheer-lead for Russia and Putin.
Well done, comrade!
In reality, none of us are.
Nut to pretend Assad is anything but a mass murderer, who has used chemical weapons multiple times on civilian targets, is just pitiful stuff.
George Osborne collects share of £30m after record profits at City advisory firm
Ex-chancellor one of three partners to share sum at Robey Warshaw, co-founded by ‘trillion-dollar man’ Simon Robey
https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2024/nov/28/george-osborne-collects-share-of-30m-after-record-profits-at-city-advisory-firm
The Greeks are still upset about the time the BM took wire brushes to the Marbles, and ISTR that was a century or so ago.
So, it is either health, family, or defenestration (not literal...)
https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2024/dec/02/intel-ceo-pat-gelsinger
Yes Starmer has inherited a mess. Not all of the Tories making, for sure, Covid and Ukraine have buggered many incumbent governments. But there is a lot else wrong in the country too. The NHS waiting lists have grown, despite more money. There seems to be a clear correlation between Labour, the Tories and the direction of travel for waiting lists in the NHS.
I’m no economist, but I do at least understand that a nations finances is not the same as an individuals. But we pay so much in interest that you have to wonder.
"After the Ottoman conquest in the mid-15th century, it became a mosque. In the Morean War, a Venetian bomb landed on the Parthenon, which the Ottomans had used as a munitions dump, during the 1687 siege of the Acropolis. The resulting explosion severely damaged the Parthenon. "
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parthenon
"The Turks used the temple for ammunition storage, and when, on the evening of 26 September 1687, a mortar shell hit the building, the resulting explosion killed 300 people and led to the complete destruction of the temple's roof and most of the walls."
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Siege_of_the_Acropolis_(1687)
ὁπόσα ἐν τοῖς καλουμένοις ἀετοῖς κεῖται, πάντα ἐς τὴν Ἀθηνᾶς ἔχει γένεσιν, τὰ δὲ ὄπισθεν ἡ Ποσειδῶνος πρὸς Ἀθηνᾶν ἐστιν ἔρις ὑπὲρ τῆς γῆς: αὐτὸ δὲ ἔκ τε ἐλέφαντος τὸ ἄγαλμα καὶ χρησμοῦ πεποίηται. μέσῳ μὲν οὖν ἐπίκειταί οἱ τῷ κράνει Σφιγγὸς εἰκών—ἃ δὲ ἐς τὴν Σφίγγα λέγεται, γράψω προελθόντος ἐς τὰ Βοιώτιά μοι τοῦ λόγου—, καθ᾽ ἑκάτερον δὲ τοῦ κράνους γρῦπές εἰσιν ἐπειργασμένοι.
Actual guidebook from millennia ago.
Yes, this government has got to show progress on lots of issues by about 4 years' time. Not complete success, but meaningful progress. But people throwing their toys out of the pram because it's not all solved in 4 months... sheesh. Some of what we're experiencing is a hangover, and hangovers aren't meant to be fun.
It may be what the public wants. But I want doesn't get, as my dear grandmother used to say.
Have the Greeks got anything stolen from us to use though?
You can’t always get what you want
You can’t always get what you want
But if you try sometimes, you might find you get what you need.
Unfortunately the last budget was neither what we wanted nor what we needed.
But from last year:
...77% of the British public have never seen the Parthenon Sculptures in the British Museum while seven out of ten say that their return to Athens would not have an impact on their interest in visiting the British Museum...
The issue, as is often the case, is that they are more political than archaeological. if we give them up, in the eyes of many, we lose a little bit of prestige and power. And likewise, the Greeks want them, in part (*), because they have become a symbol.
If this was not the case, one or either could just do with casts.
Therefore any 'solution' has to be one that allows both sides to preserve, and give, a little face.
(*) Or parts...
ElginParthenon marbles.Much has been written about Labour’s tactics since the election taking on a similar tone to those Cameron, Clegg and Osborne employed against Labour back in 2010. I.e - spend the first few months talking about how much of a mess you inherited, dine out on it down the line. Labour might still be able to do this, but I think the circumstances were different this year and they fought the last battle.
Everyone knew the Tories made a mess of things. What people were after was probably less of the doom and gloom and more of the why and how to fix it. I think people were looking for solutions. What instead we have are very sober, mournful dialogues from Starmer about how bad everything is and how it will take time to fix. But I think the issue this time is that they are being charged with talking the country down and actively pursuing policies that won’t make things better. That is the problem.
Notably a plurality of Reform voters wish to keep the marbles in the UK and nearly half of Tories wish to keep them in the British Museum too
If you want to meaningfully reduce immigration without destroying public services - and most people do - then you have to find ways of pushing UK citizens into areas like the NHS, where there are close to one million vacancies that need filling. Making it more expensive to employ low-skilled people in the private sector is one option. In fact, I can't really think of many others. Can you? What's more, we have a significant private sector productivity problem in the UK. How might you encourage that to change? Make it more expensive to hire low-skilled staff. As for interest rates, well let's see. As things stand, UK gilt yields have been falling over the last few weeks. They closed today lower than they were on 1st July.
Starmer and Reeves are terrible politicians and they have made some terrible mistakes, but it is far, far too early to write them off. Here's a fun fact: for this Christmas and the next one and the one after that and the one after that and the one after that there will be a Labour government in office led by Sir Keir. We have forgotten completely what it is like to have that level of stability. It hasn't happened for a generation.
Karma
I wish yougov could devise an IQ test as part of their next opinion poll question....
I simply don’t believe 23% of the population have ever been to the British museum.
No idea why we have this debate every few years.
So you wouldn't even need as many as 500,000 first-time British visitors a year.
Some perfect copies are made of the marbles. Half are sent back to Greece, we keep the other half. Every two or three years, we cycle them, with them giving us half of their real ones, and we give them half of our real ones. Neither country 'owns' them; we share them.
In conjunction with this, a VR experience is created, a little like the excellent MAV museum at Herculaneum (*), allowing people to view what they are like, and would have been like. This is maintained between ourselves and Greece. This is available in person (if we want), or online via VR. This will allow viewers to see them in context; which neither Greece or we will do.
(*): https://www.museomav.it/museum/?lang=en
And where do you find marble? In a geological museum - which merged with the Nat Hist M [edit] next door some years back but was always accessible by internal corridor from it and is otherwise physically still there ...
It's not that different to Argentina continuing to press about the Falklands, though probably with less success there (partly because of their weird framing of the issue as though it were not a matter of imperial lines on maps arguing).
(And as for gilt yields, we used to hear updates every five minutes on here from the PB Tories. They have become strangely silent on the matter in recent weeks).
The tests facing Starmer are the May 25 locals, the May 26 Scottish and Welsh devolved elections, and then the next election is very much coming into focus
His problem is the terrible budget and I have said previously that my budget would have been very much pro business and growth
Increase taxes to 25% and eliminate NI for all those working
Increase tax allowance to £15,000
Abolish triple lock and change to inflation plus 1%
Reduce corporation tax to 20%
Increase council tax bands
Increase fuel duty
Some form of wealth tax
This doesn't of course mean that they are legally ours, and even if they are I'd have thought it was about time they were handed back, if only as a gesture of goodwill to a friendly democratic nation. The only reason for hesitation would be the matter of encouraging a zillion other claims, mostly spurious too.
Maybe leaseback makes sense.
* Yes, I know I could Google this, but I generally find asking PB is quicker and more accurate.