Why has Rishi snubbed the Greeks?
The News Agents
Global
4.1 • 5.4K Ratings
🗓️ 28 November 2023
⏱️ 35 minutes
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Summary
Rishi Sunak has cancelled a meeting with the visiting Greek PM. Downing Street says it was because he raised the issue of the return of the Elgin Marbles/Parthenon Sculptures on the BBC, after expressly being asked not to.
The Greeks say no such deal was ever made, and they didn't fancy a downgraded meeting with the Deputy PM Oliver Dowden.
Meanwhile Keir Starmer's team say he had a very productive meeting with Kyriakos Mitsotakis on immigration and security - and they find it odd that a NATO ally was sent home empty handed. What does the row tell us about the PM's concerns? Also on the show, Lawrence Fox is fighting a libel case at the High Court to get his name cleared after he was called 'a racist' on twitter. We discuss.
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | This is a Global Player original podcast. |
| 0:05.0 | It's as if I told you that you would cut the Mona Lisa in half, and you would have half of it of the Louvre and half of it of the British Museum. |
| 0:13.0 | Do you think your viewers would appreciate the beauty of the painting in such a way? |
| 0:17.0 | Well, this is exactly what happened with the Parthenon. |
| 0:20.0 | That was Kiriakos Mitsutakis, and he's the Greek Prime Minister. |
| 0:24.8 | He was speaking on the BBC Sunday show just two days ago, |
| 0:29.8 | a little clip, really, that went almost unnoticed, until suddenly. |
| 0:34.7 | 48 hours later, it's blown up into the weirdest diplomatic row anyone can really remember. |
| 0:41.0 | Mitsutakis was due to be meeting Rishi Sunak as part of a three-day visit. |
| 0:46.3 | Downing Street late last night told journalists that that visit was off, |
| 0:51.4 | having been apparently disappointed that Mitsotakis had brought up the Parthenon |
| 0:56.9 | sculptures in an interview on the BBC. There is almost no precedent for a head of government |
| 1:03.5 | in London due to meet the Prime Minister to be cancelled, to be spurned so readily, so |
| 1:10.0 | comprehensively. On today's show, we're going to be |
| 1:12.3 | talking to you about why this has happened. Welcome to the news agents. The news agents. |
| 1:21.1 | It's Emily. And it's Lewis. Can we just before Emily we start, we're going to make it very |
| 1:25.1 | clear. We're not going to talk about Rishi Sunak losing his marbles at any point today. Such a great type offering from John Sopal of our |
| 1:33.3 | Baden correspondent. Yeah, cheers, John. Thanks for nothing for that particular contribution this |
| 1:37.0 | morning. Anyway, right, so this is about the Elgin marbles or the Parthenon sculptures, depending on |
| 1:41.8 | which side of this particular fence that you sit on. |
| 1:44.3 | And just in case, you don't know about them, you've never seen them, you don't care about |
| 1:47.8 | them, which, as we're going to discuss, is probably most of the British public. |
... |
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