STEPHEN GLOVER: George Osborne should try something other than sending back the Elgin Marbles

Should the Elgin Marbles be returned to Greece? The question may not be the number one topic down at the Dog & Duck, but I wager that it provokes strong views in many Britons.

A poll two months ago suggested that 53 per cent of British people believe that the sublime Marbles — acquired by Lord Elgin more than 200 years ago — should be sent back to Athens from their home in the British Museum.

I admit that my own sympathies have until very recently inclined in that direction. I have asked myself: how would we feel if some foreign nob had carted off objects we associate with our own history — for example, bits of the standing stones at Stonehenge?

On the whole, I’ve thought to myself, it might be sensible to assuage Greek anger by handing over the Marbles, though there’s no prospect of their being restored to the Parthenon, a temple built in the fifth century BC. They would sit in a museum in Athens.

But having read a pamphlet by the historian Sir Noel Malcolm, published today by the excellent Right-wing think-tank Policy Exchange, I am persuaded that we have every right to hang on to the Elgin Marbles.

Not that Sir Noel has written a polemic. His report is measured and even-handed. It acknowledges arguments on both sides. In his opinion, the sculptures have been well cared for by the British Museum, where visitors from all over the world can observe them without charge.

Sir Noel argues compellingly that they were legally acquired by Lord Elgin, and that without his intervention they might well not have survived. He points out the dangers of loaning the Marbles to Greece, though he doesn’t entirely rule out the idea.

This is a proposal that has been cooked up, almost entirely in secret, by the present chairman of the Trustees of the British Museum, George Osborne. He was our supercilious chancellor of the exchequer between 2010 and 2016; the man who prophesied instant Armageddon if the British voted to leave the EU.

Since being fired by Theresa May in 2016, Mr Osborne has done a number of highly lucrative jobs and become extremely rich. He even tried his hand as a newspaper editor, though lacking any journalistic experience.

His present berth is a partnership at the Mayfair investment bank Robey Warshaw. Last December, the bank announced that a payout of £26.5 million would be shared among four partners, of whom Mr Osborne is one.

But the former chancellor is not only interested in money. He craves power and influence, perhaps on a domestic stage with a view to re-entering politics, but more likely, I would guess, on a global scale, where he would be able to pull very big levers.

Mr Osborne, it should be noted, is a schmoozer par excellence. He is seldom happier than when hobnobbing with the international elite at the World Economic Forum in Davos, or at meetings of the secretive Bilderberg Group. He was never one to get his hands dirty.

On the face of it, the chairmanship of the British Museum might not seem an ideal platform for a man with such far-flung ambitions, though he is more cultured than most Tory former ministers, besides being an able administrator.

The role does, however, satisfy his desire to cut a figure on the international stage — or is capable of doing so. Having become chairman in September 2021, Mr Osborne reportedly embarked on private discussions with Kyriakos Mitsotakis, the Greek prime minister, about the Elgin Marbles.

One consideration that must have weighed heavily on both men was that, because of an Act of Parliament, the British Museum doesn’t have the right unilaterally to return the Marbles to Greece. But it could negotiate a loan deal of some or all of the Marbles, which is what Mr Osborne has evidently being trying to do.

This might seem a sensible compromise. The trouble is that the Greek government won’t recognise British ownership. As recently as January, its ministry of culture declared: ‘We repeat, once again, our country’s firm position that it does not recognise the British Museum’s jurisdiction, possession and ownership of the Sculptures, as they are the product of theft.’

Not very flexible. If an agreement were reached, the Greeks might hang on to what had been lent them. They might not do this immediately, but after a loan of a few Marbles had been followed by a more comprehensive one, they might simply refuse to return the whole lot.

In other words, a loan of any sort would be a perilous course until or unless the Greek government openly accepts that the British Museum is the rightful custodian of the Elgin Marbles. Such an acknowledgement is highly unlikely.

You would think Mr Osborne would realise this. And yet this sinuous man has been negotiating away in the shadows, though why he should believe that he has the right to jeopardise this country’s possession of the Marbles baffles me.

Last week, Rishi Sunak — into whose political ambit, by the way, Mr Osborne has been deftly insinuating himself — entered the fray by saying that there were ‘no plans’ to change the law that keeps the sculptures in Britain. Some people may draw comfort from this statement.

Unfortunately, ‘no plans’ today can easily turn into a plan to do something different tomorrow. Besides, Mr Sunak’s intervention appears not to rule out a loan, which would be a dangerous path for the reasons I have mentioned.

Later this week, the trustees of the British Museum are meeting under Mr Osborne’s chairmanship. He will doubtless have some ruses up his sleeve. I do urge the trustees to read Sir Noel Malcolm’s learned pamphlet, which could scarcely be more fair-minded.

The Elgin Marbles weren’t stolen. They were removed lawfully and with the approval of the Ottoman rulers, who were using the Parthenon as a fort and had previously (and disastrously) stored gunpowder in it. Without Lord Elgin’s involvement, the sculptures would probably not have survived.

They have been cared for by the British Museum, where they can be seen for free by anyone who travels to London, an international city to a far greater extent than Athens is. Moreover, if the Elgin Marbles were returned there would be a long queue of petitioners demanding the return of other artistic objects.

I suppose it’s useless to remind Greeks of Britain’s role in the creation of modern Greece in 1832, or of its assistance in seeing off communist rebels — and keeping Greece out of the Soviet orbit — between late 1944 and early 1947, committing some 75,000 troops. Good turns in international relations are seldom remembered.

If only the Greek government would accept reality — that the Marbles were lawfully acquired and have been lovingly preserved by the British Museum. The way would then be open to loaning some of these precious objects, as artistic treasures are frequently shared between great museums.

But without a cast-iron assurance, backed by law, let’s keep the Elgin Marbles safely in London. If George Osborne wants to win international renown and the applause of the global elite, he must try another way.