The Parthenon marbles row is beyond silly. Rishi Sunak screeches “Mine, mine” like a child in a playground. He refuses a cup of tea with the Greek prime minister, Kyriakos Mitsotakis. The leader of the opposition laughs. The nation yawns – polls show over half are happy to see the marbles returned and just above 20% want them to stay. Any civilised Briton knows they should be displayed where they belong – in their former home of Athens. But what fun it is to think up smart reasons why this should never happen.
Sunak’s quest for a daily headline gets more frantic by the day. There was something synthetic about Monday’s incident. Mitsotakis’ reference to the separated marbles being like the Mona Lisa cut in half might be over the top. But as any visitor to Greece knows, what to Britain is a boring scholastic quarrel is to Greeks a burning sense of grievance that will not go away. This is an asymmetrical row.
