Parthenon Marbles
Debate between Lord Parkinson of Whitley Bay and Lord Campbell-Savours(2 years, 9 months ago)
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Lord Campbell-Savours (Lab) [V]
My Lords, how does the Minister respond to Boris Johnson’s earlier elegant words of wisdom, when he wrote, in more romantic times:
“The Elgin marbles should leave this northern whisky-drinking guilt-culture, and be displayed where they belong: in a country of bright sunshine and the landscape of Achilles, ‘the shadowy mountains and the echoing sea’”?
Would it not be a generous act in his final days, before —if I can possibly say this—being sacked, to arrange for their return? We could retain replicas.
Lord Parkinson of Whitley Bay (Con)
My Lords, fortunately for all Ministers, government policy is not made by the things that Ministers wrote when we were undergraduates. The Prime Minister has made the long-standing position of Her Majesty’s Government clear to the Greek Prime Minister, most recently when they met in November.