UK Politics Thread

I went to the British Museum once with a mate, but we both agreed after an hour or so that there was just far too much stuff to look at, and went for an early pint.

I think it will be fine.

If jonny forrins want their loot back they should have fought harder in war.

You won't see the crown jewels in the museum of Turkmenistan.

I am a bit of a nerd with BM Membership who actually watches videos by the curators on just what their day to day job is. Plus stupid amounts of Time Team.

Fwiw sorting out some arrangement with Greece be it a "loan" or whatever with some real nice replicas in London, is worth doing just so we stop having spats with a fucking NATO ally over some marbles. It's just dumb and is the kind of crap that gives the likes of Tommy Robinson fuel. Ditto the Benin Bronzes.

I do think there's an interesting thing going on with people's sense of ownership of stuff. Which is relatively modern, like the last 80 years, though with nationalism maybe going back to the mid 19th century when nationalism really started. With loads of layered on anachronism. The Koh-i-noor is effectively claimed by Britain, India, Pakistan and Afghanistan, all with a claim through conquest (except maybe India, but that's literally because it was dug up there). Considering it was Mughal though you'd think the Pakistan one was stronger as they speak Urdu, are Muslims and are from the actual same place. If not the place where the diamond mine probably was. Is there even an answer there? Considering how much Pakistan and India hate each other at times, would they just bicker over it instead?

I think there's other problems that fuzzily get drawn into the same ideas though which are often poorly thought out.

Say reparations. My family, on both sides, left Ireland for Scotland during or just after the famine. As catholics they were often treated like shit, but then the men were parts of the Black Watch in the wars and my parents got free Uni that dragged the family out of poverty. Myself I got free education, the NHS and heavily subsidised uni. If the UK paid reparations to Ireland, what's my family's role in that? Do we pay up, is it cost neutral, are we owed money as we'd never have left Ireland in the first place? Fuck knows. It's probably just best left as it is as I can't think what an actual fair answer is that doesn't involve paying accountants like KPMG 4billion quid just to work out a formula.

Cultural appropriation. Can it happen if say, Japan, readily exports all its culture for profit? Weebs are kinda creepy but that seems like a different thing. Is the British adoption of curry appropriation or cultural fusion? Is British curry culture separate from South Asian, or a mix? Who owns it all British people or the British-Asian people who invented it and run it? I think the, probably American, very black/white version of it is basically fucking stupid as it discounts all the ways people come together in a good way.

Even something as simple as who invented what. Countries tend to claim stuff, when it turns out multiple people in multiple places were all doing something roughly similar around the same time.

Or not to go into it too much but it was mentioned in the context of the Israel-Hamas war. Anyone telling an original settler's great grand kids their family home isn't really theirs is doing something incredibly dumb.

The reality of the world that's actually lived in by actual people. Is one where people have moved around, intermingled, conquered each other, claimed stuff, given stuff away. It's more practical to deal with that as it is than try to work out the historical basis of anything. As that's just a fucking mess. The British aren't the Ancient Britons. The French aren't The Gauls. The Italians aren't the Romans (less obvious but it was repeatedly overrun by Lombards, hence Lombardy, and Goths. Then Sicily spent centuries swapping between North African muslims, The Greek Byzantines and eventually more Normans) hence they don't speak Latin. As there's been several thousand years of people moving, mostly through invading and taking stuff. Attaching yourself to people who lived in roughly the same place as you but millennia ago is kind of meaningless. Or it does mean something, but that something is way more complex than these theories give it credit for.

Fair. It sort of fizzed out of me.

said user Geefe former music journalist and current educator.

Sunak should hold his breath until the Greeks shut up about it. And once he loses consciousness we just chuck him in a crate with the marbles and send it to Athens.

And miss out on watching a Greek bloke flap Sunak like a flag?

Top trolling Chuck.

Blimey, I realise I'm thick as shit. But I'm a Norman, so what do I know! (Yep, we conquered you lot in 1066). ✌️

He may be of Greek descent, but even if he weren't, if you've reached a level where your own king goes out of his way to troll you, you need to take a few steps back and off a pier

That said, since we're being so sensible and amicable and all right now, how about setting a good example for the moron, starting to rummage through the ol' royal jewelry cabinet and sending a few of these back to their countries too, your Royal Elderness?

Rishi Sunak's official twitter account

The picture reads to me as:
"Daaaaad stop showing me up"
"Haha stop being a dick."

Inbreeding

Charles has always been someone I liked and he's always down for a delightful troll. I'm minded of the time his mum wore jewellery the Obamas gave her when she met Trump.