Kinnock's deeper purpose
George Walden
A 11 this talk of '1984' is getting me .L.down. Politically it is worrying too: the threat loses conviction with repetition. Someone is trying to lull us all into a false sense of security. Listening to Mr Kinnock the other day on the World at One talking about the Elgin Marbles, I realised who it was. His aim is simple: to persuade us that he has neither the wish, nor the expertise, to enslave us. The methods are more complex: disorientating, psychological, Darkness at Noon stuff.
First, he writes an article in the Times of such intellectual density that no one will fight through to the end. He may even be advocating Orwellism for all we know. Secondly, and this is where the Elgin Marbles come in, Mr Kinnock is deliberate- ly casting diversionary doubt on his abilities to run a whelk stall, let alone an efficient totalitarian state. It was cunning to set up Harold Wilson to remind us of this a few days ago, when the former Prime Minister mused publicly on the consequences of his failure to give Mr Kinnock ministerial office. But the Greek affair was far more subtle, and sinister.
In the new year, Mr Kinnock stepped slowly and deliberately out of the limelight, so that the limelight had no choice but to follow him on his eccentric trip to Greece. Cleverly, he went out of his way to make it known that he went with no practical pur- pose in mind but to solve the problem of the Elgin Marbles.
Speaking from his hotel in Athens, in response to an increasingly incredulous interviewer (though she may have been set up too), Mr Kinnock first suggested that the obvious, egalitarian solution was that they The sanctity of shacking up together means nothing to you?' should spend six months here, and six in Greece: Alternating antiquities, Inc., or international art timeshare, as it were. Even Miss Mercouri thought this mildly imprac- tical.
Fears for Mr Kinnock's own marbles rose at this point. But this was only the start. The interviewer (surely not by arrange- ment?) then led him on by asking what would happen to other displaced works of art, with similar rights of intermittent repatriation. It was then that Mr Kinnock struck his most devilish stroke, plunging in the sword of improbability up to the hilt. With a straight microphone face, he sug- gested that they could be timeshared as well, between countries with any legitimate aesthetic claim.
Ostentatiously he shrugged off such mat- ters as safety, insurance or damage in tran- sit, and allowed himself to be drawn into giving examples. The Mona Lisa, he admit- ted, was a borderline case. (Under the Kin- nock Scheme, I suppose it might be flown back to Italy say once a week for one night shows. Note here the contrived unconcern for the feelings of his cultivated Socialist colleague, M. Mitterrand.)
He was obviously bursting to give other examples, had time permitted. He would, no doubt, have mentioned that the British Museum also possesses a rather handsome, miniature Greek temple (the Nereid tomb), which could soon be shuttling backwards and forwards to Athens. There is a fine Roman temple at Nimes in France, to which the French might, I suppose, stake a better claim, on account of it having been built there. But on stylistic grounds alone, that too should be repatriated for say two to three months a year to Italy. Like our little Greek equivalent, it would spend most of its life in transit. But frequent travellers might get a glimpse of the intricate and ex- pensive packing crates and security systems, and marvel at ancient and modern techno- logies together.
Antique masonry would soon be flying around Europe, and across the Atlantic too. Mr Kinnock would no doubt lead the campaign for the return, stone by stone, of London Bridge. Negotiations could be a lit- tle protracted here. But even if we both end- ed up with a bit of an old bridge, some of the time, that in itself would be a brilliant vindication of Mr Kinnock's deeper poli- tical purpose: demonstrative impractica- bility.
The brain teems with examples and impli- cations. There would be a lot to do. Unesco would have to be given a consultancy they need the money now — and there would be rich pickings for the packers of the TGWU and Greek shipowners. But Mr kinnock could not be criticised for creating jobs for the boys': you cannot accuse the man of ulterior motives when he is trying to show the unworkability of his schemes.
Some of us are not so easily fooled. We .know that Mr Kinnock was only pretending In the first place. So, evidently, did Miss lvlercouri, who briskly obliged him to settle for one-way rotation of the Marbles. Mr
Kinnock rationalised all this by saying that the Parthenon without the Marbles was like a gap-toothed smile. There are no gaps in Miss Mercouri's smile.
George Walden is Conservative Member of Parliament for Buckingham and a Member of the Select Committee on Education, Science and the Arts.
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