Writing about American politics in 2023 is a grind. It tends to make one a gloomy Gus. My solution is to write about a row involving the United Kingdom and Greece. It’s the latest battle in the ongoing war over the Parthenon Marbles AKA the Elgin Marbles.

Lord Elgin was a British diplomat, soldier, politician, and all-around buttinski. The original plan was to survey and catalog items at the Parthenon. In 1803, one of Elgin’s minions supervised the removal of the Marbles to London where they can be found in the British Museum.

Elgin justified his removal of the Marbles by blaming the Ottoman Turks who ran the show in my ancestral homeland back then. That bit played well with the Greeks for a while. They had other concerns at the time and needed British help to oust the Turks, which happened in 1832 after an 11 year war. The Marbles stayed in London and the British put a German prince on the Greek throne. Oy just oy.

That concludes this sketchy historical thumbnail sketch.

Greece has long maintained that the Marbles were removed illegally, but the issue lay dormant for many years. Greece had bigger fish to fry, wars to fight, Turks to hate, and dictatorships to overthrow, Finally, in 1983 the Greek government made a formal request for the return of the Marbles.

I’m not sure if it was a polite request as the Greek Prime Minister at the time was my brusque distant relative Andreas Papandreou. He was both the son and father of PMs. Greek politics is a family affair: the current PM, Kyriyakos Mitsotakis is also the son of a former PM. There’s only one way to end this passage about political nepo-babies:

Earlier this year, it looked as if the Marbles would return home after over 200 years in exile. The British Museum and the Greek government came to an agreement. There was a catch: the British government had to approve the deal, which was negotiated by former Tory Chancellor and Museum board chair George Osborne. That should have made it a sure thing but domestic politics got in the way and Sunak rejected the deal to appease the far right of his party.

Please forgive any omissions, over-simplifications, or misplaced details. This is a complicated subject and I’m not an expert. I don’t even play one on the internet.

The dispute over the Marbles between two otherwise friendly governments came to a head yesterday:

“Greece’s prime minister has criticised the decision of his British counterpart Rishi Sunak to cancel planned talks at which he had hoped to raise the issue of the Parthenon marbles, as disagreements over the antiquities erupted with renewed vigour.

As aides described Sunak’s move as “wrong and undignified”, Kyriakos Mitsotakis, who is visiting London, voiced irritation at the scheduled Downing Street meeting being called off at the 11th hour.

“I [want to] express my annoyance at the fact that the British prime minister cancelled our scheduled meeting a few hours before it was due to take place,” the centre-right leader said in a statement released by his Maximou office as the diplomatic row intensified.

“Greece and Britain are united by traditionally strong ties of friendship and the framework of our bilateral relations is exceptionally broad. The views of Greece on the Parthenon sculptures are well known.”

Sunak is a weak Prime Minister elected only by Tory MPs. He’s terrified of doing anything to alienate the populist right of his party; many of whom pine for the return of Boris Johnson bad hair and all.

Prime Minister Mitsotakis also met with Labour leader Keir Starmer. Such meetings are customary, but the Tory right was outraged. Outrage is all they’re good at. Shorter Adrastos: They lost their marbles. Hence the post title. It’s also catchy, punchy, and marbly.

These comments from Downing Street make it clear that reason and decency will not prevail in this matter:

One senior Conservative source, referring to the sculptures as the Elgin marbles – after Lord Elgin, the Scottish diplomat who controversially requested their removal from the Acropolis in the early 19th century – said: “It became impossible for this meeting to go ahead following commentary regarding the Elgin marbles prior to it.

“Our position is clear – the Elgin marbles are part of the permanent collection of the British Museum and belong here. It is reckless for any British politician to suggest that this is subject to negotiation.”

Reckless? They’re classical carvings that belong in Athens, not London. Mitsotakis describes the current situation as akin to “cutting the Mona Lisa in half.”

Hit it, Nat:

As much as I hate agreeing with a center-right Greek politician who is not related to me, Mitsotakis nailed it. Labour is open to reviving the Osborne deal, so it will have to wait until next year. Meanwhile, the Sunak government is losing their marbles over the Parthenon, not Elgin, Marbles. Stay tuned.

The last word goes to Marillion with a song that closes with this refrain, “Bring back, bring back, oh bring back my marbles to me, to me.”