The Mayor said: “Someone urgently needs to restore George Clooney’s marbles. Here he is plugging a film about looted Nazi art without realising that Goring himself had plans to plunder the British Museum.
“And where were the Nazis going to send the Elgin marbles? To Athens! This Clooney is advocating nothing less than the Hitlerian agenda for London’s cultural treasures. He should stuff the Hollywood script and stick to history.”
At a press conference in London earlier this week, Clooney said returning the marbles which were removed from the Parthenon 200 years ago as “probably the right thing to do”.
The Telegraph
This comment redefines the term “devil’s advocate” or “spinning” for that matter. Mr Mayor is trying to distort the meaning of returning something stolen to its rightful owner, into being a Hitlerian agenda!
So it appears, that the descendant of the thief, is not only proud to be a thief, but feels obliged to turn the tables—in a rather unsavoury manner—to anyone claiming that the thief (or the descendants thereof) should make amends.
His non sequitur though, becomes even more apparent, when he describes the Parthenon marbles as “London’s cultural treasures” and then urges Clooney to “stuff the Hollywood script and stick to history“. Apparently, in Mr. Johnson’s history books, the Parthenon marbles are a misnomer for “London marbles” (Originating from where? Stonehenge? Big Ben? Tower Bridge?)
Well done Mr Boris Johnson. Being both a thief and a politician is hardly unusual, but being openly proud about it deserves the Spinning Academy Award for the year 2014.
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