Quite extraordinarily, the Indian government has just claimed the Koh I Noor diamond was voluntarily gifted by the Sikh ruler Dulip Singh to the British government.
Now while I quite understand that the Indian government is seeking to avoid a confrontation with the British government over the diamond, that cannot justify the telling in court of such an outrageous lie.
My biography of Alexander Burnes will be out in August. It includes an extremely vivid account of a party hosted by the great Maharaja Ranjit Singh, at which the British officers and their Sikh hosts got uproariously drunk and played catch with the Koh I Noor. The recipient of Burnes’ letter, Major General Ramsay, was the same man who as Lord Dalhousie was to take the Koh I Noor from Dulip Singh – a child prisoner just ten years old – after the Sikhs were defeated by the British in a bloody war of conquest. To describe this as a “gift” is absolutely preposterous.
Britain annexed the Sikh Kingdom. Poor Dulip Singh was forcibly separated from his mother and exiled to Scotland, where he was held effectively a state prisoner until his death.
It is bad enough to see senior Indians kowtowing to that lazy bald bloke and his skinny wife, on the very expensive luxury holiday I am paying for, without also seeing the Indian government playing lickspittle in court.
Great story. I too was amazed to read that the Indian government had taken such a position. Then I recollected all that we know about Modi, the BJP, the RSS and its betrayal of the people of India made perfect sense: its what they do.
But of course it would be none of our business if Modi were not democratically elected or an opponent of Western democracies (not that I like the chap one bit either) and Bevin would no doubt be preaching his hypocritical doctrine of non interference.
Good stuff mate !
Great at least now we know that a ten year old child, who can barely discern his butt from his elbow, has “gifted” the most expensive diamond that a ninety year hag whom evidently is “hard working” * and now we can look forward to the “celebrations” that no doubt will be on the telly with eccentric tossers wearing weird union-jack out fits and plastic bowler hats bearing the same insignia, and waving flags of the same in case anyone missed the point. I hope there will be an underwear inspector to ensure that the said eccentric old tossers have worn their union jack knickers for the sake of keeping the ensemble and the theme thereof.
Meanwhile back at the ranch the queues in front of the food banks are growing longer, that is for those poor whom are lucky enough to be certified as destitute by the department of poverty inspectors (used to be called social service) otherwise the unofficial poor can go to hell and rot.
* Evidently waving ones hand and getting whisked off from one ball to another constitutes as hard work.
“It is bad enough to see senior Indians kowtowing to that lazy bald bloke and his skinny wife, on the very expensive luxury holiday I am paying for, without also seeing the Indian government playing lickspittle in court.”
_______________
Oh, Craig you are far to modest and polite, the parasites have been a drain on society for centuries.
Incidently Wiki, also claims the Koh-i-Noor diamond (Persian for Mountain of Light) was gifted to the British, for compensation in aiding in the Sikh wars.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Koh-i-Noor
I suppose there could be several instances in British colonial history, where, the authors of history books, have more than looked favourably on British actions, that in reality were less than chivalrous, to say the least.
This is quite interesting as well.
The Last Treaty of Lahore.
“Terms granted to the Maharajah Duleep Singh Bahadoor, on the part of the Honourable East India Company, by Henry Miers Elliot, Esq., Foreign Secretary to the Government of India, and Lieut.-Colonel Sir Henry Montgomery Lawrence, K.C.B.,
“Resident, in virtue of the power vested in them, by the Right Honourable James, Earl of Dalhousie, Knight of the Most Ancient Order of the Thistle, one of Her Majesty’s Most Honourable Privy Council, Governor-General, appointed by the Honourable East India Company, to direct and control all their affairs in the East Indies; and accepted, on the part of His Highness the Maiiarajah, by Rajah Tej Singh, Rajah Deena Nath, Bhaee Nidhan Singh, Fakeer Nooroodeen, Gundur Singh, agent of Sirdar Shere Singh Sindunwallah, and Sirdar Lai Singh, agent and son of Sirdar Uttur Singh Kaleewallah, members of the Council of Regency, invested with full powers and authority on the part of His Highness.”
“1. His Highness the Maharajah Duleep Singh shall resign for himself, his heirs, and his successors all right, title, and claim to the sovereignty of the Punjab, or to any sovereign power whatever.”
“II. All the property of the State, of whatever description and Chapter wheresoever found, shall he confiscated to the Honourable East India Company, in part payment of the debt due by the State of Lahore to the British Government and of the expenses of the war.”
“III. The gem called the Koh-i-Noor, which was taken from Shah Sooja-ool-moolk by Maharajah Runjeet Singh, shall be surrendered by the Maharajah of Lahore to the Queen of England.”
“IV. His Highness Duleep Singh shall receive from the Honourable East India Company, for the support of himself, his relatives, and the servants of the State, a pension of not less than four, and not exceeding five, lakhs of Company’s rupees per annum.”
“V. His Highness shall be treated with respect and honour. He shall retain the title of Maharajah Duleep Singh Bahadoor, and he shall continue to receive during his life such portion of the above-named pension as may be allotted to himself personally, provided he shall remain obedient to the British Government, and shall reside at such place as the Governor-General of India may select.”
“Granted and accepted at Lahore on the 29th of March, 1849, and ratified by the Right Honourable the Governor-General on the 5th of April, 1849.”
“(Signed)
Dalhousie—Maharajah Duleep Singh
H. M. Elliot—Rajah Tej Singh
H. M. Lawrence—Rajah Deena Nath
Bhaee Nidhan Singh (Head of the Sikh religion)
Fakeer Nooroodeen
Gundur Singh (Agent to Sirdar Shere Singh, Sindunwallah)
Sirdar Lal Singh (Agent and son of Sirdar Uttur Singh, Kaleewallah)”
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Treaty_of_Lahore#Text_of_the_1849_Last_Treaty_of_Lahore
I would have expected Prime Minister Modi to be more nationalist than that. Is he putting his globalist neoliberalism ahead of his nationalism? Or is it Hindu lack of sympathy for Sikhs?
The victors write history, so sad to see the vanquished backing them up.
But the vanquished were once the victors, how do you think they got the diamond and how did the people they got if from get it?
That’s how it was done and to decide the method invalid for the last change of hands is to declare it invalid for all previous changes of hands.
According to Wikipedia, the Sikhs got possession of the diamond because they were given it by its possessor of the time:
Anyway, if you’re going to give it back to its original owners, before the thefts began, India seems as good a candidate as any:
Fred.
“That’s how its done”
Transferring your line of thought to the “modern” era, that would mean the illegal war in Iraq, and the subsequent control of Iraqi minerals such as oil, would go to the victors ie, the Western coalition.
Or the rare earth elements stripped from Afghanistan, by Western backed corporations, seen as the spoils of war, including the lucrative poppy fields.
Or we could say that Israel’s bloody takeover of Palestine, which has resulted in the worlds largest open air prison, and the subsequent usurping of Palestinian lands are just the spoil of war, and as you say that’s how its done, and as you also say Fred, how can you decide if the method is invalid, I’m sure in your eyes its completely valid.
Israel hasn’t stopped there Fred, it has the Golan Heights as well, since 1967, thankfully the UN doesn’t see it from your perspective even if they daren’t do anything about it.
“Transferring your line of thought to the “modern” era,”
You can’t do that. Now we have the UN and have signed treaties, times have changed and the world has changed.
Fred
Ranjit Singh stole it from Shah Shuja. He had inherited it after ahmed shah dourani, his grandfather, had looted it from Nadir Shah of Persia on his death. Nadir Shad had looted it from Delhi.
Indeed it has a long and violent history. But that does not make the lie that it was “gifted” to the UK true.
But I really do wonder about your strange compulsion to defend the British state in any circumstance, whatever the subject.
Just telling it how it was. To the victors go the spoils was the rule. Change the rule in retrospect for one and you must change it for all. Imagine what a precedent that would set.
And I, Craig, spmetimes wonder about your strange compulsion to attack the British state in whatever circumstances and even on subjects as thin and insubstantial as this one.
Who cares whether it was a gift or not and what the Indian govt is saying? Is it really so important as to merit a post from you?
What the Indian govt is saying closes the case.
Nice of them. Not unimportant.
” Now we have the UN and have signed treaties, times have changed and the world has changed.”
_________________
Fred.
Nothings changed Fred, look around you, the USA has been, inciting conflicts in South America, covertly for most of the 20th century, and now the 21st century, tell me Fred, what has the UN done about it.?
Tell me Fred, where was the UN, when Britain threw the Chagossians from their homes to make way for the US military?
Where was the UN, when, the Western coalition forces, entered Syria , a sovereign nation, without a mandate to do so.?
Where was the UN, or the coalition forces when the Baghdad museum, had its ancient artifacts and relics plundered under coalition occupation after the illegal war?
I could carry on all day Fred, I haven’t even gotten round to Africa, and the likes of Libya and Yemen, the latter, which Britian is selling billions of pounds of miliitary weapons and training to Saudi Arabia, which inturn is using them to kill Yemeni civilians, tell me Fred why isn’t the UN Treaties, that you put so much faith in saving those desperate civilians?
As I said Fred, nothings really changed.
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=H9sk1GkDTYA
This one is for Fred, whenever he posts…
” Indeed it has a long and violent history. But that does not make the lie that it was “gifted” to the UK true. ”
Perhaps not but it’s a pragmatic way to head off the conflicting claims of ownership which otherwise might clog up the courts for decades to come ad possibly lead to more violence.
“Nothings changed Fred,”
In the real world it did.
“This one is for Fred, whenever he posts…”
If you can’t argue against the facts it’s not a good idea to start attacking the person instead. You might get away with it with others, you won’t get away with it with me.
I’d recommend ‘The Maharajah’s Box’ by Christy Campbell. Duleep Singh lived at Elvesen Hall in Suffolk but then renounced his British guardians & made his way to Russia & eventually died in Paris.
Campbell’s other book ‘Fenion Fire’ gives a very good account of a British state sponsored alleged terrorism ‘plot’ to kill Queen Vicoria, used to smear James Parnell, a supporter of home rule for Ireland.
Campbell seems to have gotten his British state sponsored terrorism quite wrong when he claimed it plotted to kill Queen Victoria when it was apparently behind the assassinations of Chief Secretary Lord Frederick Cavendish, and Under Secretary Thomas Burke in Phoenix Park in 1882 which the IRA celebrated the 100th anniversary of by blowing up those bombs in Hyde Park in July 1982.
Dublin Castle may have hoped that the assassinations would sink Charles Stewart Parnell’s Home Rule efforts.
Oxford Professor A, V. Dicey got involved in the thick of all this.
Sounds like just its latest thief has it, and it might spell the doom of that “lazy bald bloke.”
Seems they’ve been mateying up since Modi’s visit last year:
“Though the two countries sealed £9billion worth of commercial deals in the retail, logistics, energy, finance, IT, education and health sectors, it was the perceptual change in this bilateral tie-up that will have a much lasting impact on the future trajectory of a relationship which was seemingly headed nowhere before this visit.”
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/indiahome/indianews/article-3320999/Modi-redefines-India-s-relations-UK-successful-meet-British-PM.html
Now bestey mates with both China and India.
[mod, recovered from spam filter]
“Now bestey mates with both China and India.”
_____________________________
You seem to have a problem with that. What is it, exactly?
Wait – I think I’ve understood: if the UK were on bad terms with them, you could com^plain about that.
Now that it isn’t, you’ve got nothing to complain about.
So you complain.
You’ve gotta see the Big Picture, Herbie. Just complaining away is for the peeps.
I’ve simply explained the bigger picture, habby.
I’ll leave the complaining to yourself and the other Israel firsters.
If you haven’t yet worked out that I’m in favour of Europe’s cooperation with the East and South then you’re even more stupid than you’ve shown to date.
The tone of your first post gave me – and perhaps others – the impression that you weren’t very happy. But perhaps I misread your gnomic post….
Thanks also for your constant explanations of the “bigger picture”; I’ve always seen you as more of a miniaturist.
It’s only in such limited minds as yours that there’s any dichotomy at all, and of course I take account of that when addressing you.
But most of the sensible posters on here will see both the part within the whole, as well as, the whole within the part.
I’d recommend Blake’s, Auguries of Innocence, were you not such a committed and determined imbecile.
Does the extraordinary Mr Jacob aka Isaacs feature in this story?
Apologies, I was barking up the wrong tree. Mr Jacob was involved with the equally impressive Victoria aka Jacob diamond (although I dare say it also had less euro centric names).
It is my understanding that the diamond has always been a prize of conquest, from the early Hindu kingdoms to the Delhi Sultans, the Afghans, through the Mughals, Nadir Shah, the Sikhs and finally the British.
If anyone wants it back they can fight for it.
Legality, fairness – out of the window in your world. Might makes right, and the most thuggish player should win, you think? Fascinating.
It would appear that not all Indian’s feel the diamond was a gift.
“It was once the world’s largest known diamond, is worth a reported £100m and is currently part of Britain’s crown jewels.
But India wants it back.
“Bollywood stars and businessmen have united to instruct lawyers to begin legal proceedings in London’s High Court to return the Koh-i-Noor diamond.”
“The group, which has called itself the “Mountain of Light” after the translation of the stone’s name, say that the 105-carat diamond was stolen from its true home in India and are demanding that the UK Government returns it.”
“The stone is “one of the many artefacts taken from India under dubious circumstances”, according to David de Souza from the Indian leisure group Tito’s.”
“Souza claims the British colonisation of India had stolen wealth and “destroyed the country’s psyche”.
“British Lawyers instructed by the “Mountain of Light” group to seek the stone’s return, said they would base their case on the Holocaust (Return of Cultural Objects) Act, which gives national institutions in the UK the power to return stolen art.”
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/india-sues-the-queen-for-return-of-stolen-100m-koh-i-noor-diamond-a6725951.html
The Elgin Marbles, come to mind.
“British Lawyers instructed by the “Mountain of Light” group to seek the stone’s return…”
There’s a group for everything in India.
Anon1
Speaking of “Indian groups”
Melodies from the Indian continent, can be traced as far back as 1200 BC, and possibly, even further back.
I’m old school, I don’t use BCE. ?
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Samaveda
It is bad enough to see senior Indians kowtowing to that lazy bald bloke and his skinny wife, on the very expensive luxury holiday I am paying for, without also seeing the Indian government playing lickspittle in court.
Never miss an opportunity to slag off against the British State do you. But calling Modi a “lickspittle” is ridiculous.
Obviously the position of the Indian Government is that if those stupid Brits who give millions in support of our nuclear missile programme want to keep some fucking piece of rock, let ’em.
Exiled to Scotland? The poor bastard, nobody deserves that.
I think Scotland is a Beautiful Country…With nice folks
Sorry, should’ve popped a smiley face on the end 🙂
It is the best part of England, after all.
Meant to add that there are Many ‘ Mountains of Light ‘ in Scotland… And Beaches of light too
Oor mountains of light
Waters fall and rainbows rise
Thunder and Silence
🙂
Skinny wife? Bit of an ad feminam there, Craig. The lovely, talented and fertile royal brood mare is an example to all those obese and diabetic subjects of the glorious Crown. (you could probably lose a pound or to, btw). Maintaining that shape on a diet of splendid banquets is quite an achievement. I’d do it, anyway, if it took its silly hat off.
/two. My lips were moving…
I’m wondering how much the Koh-i-Noor would cost on the open market. £270M maybe?
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/asia/india/12031818/Britain-gave-India-nearly-300m-aid-last-year.html
It’s not all one-way.
Britain does owe a certain debt to India. Timeline of major famines in India during British ruleTimeline of major famines in India during British rule.
For the brutal suppression of the Great Mutiny, see William Dalrymple’s The Last Mughal.
Let’s put that in context, eh?
http://www.preservearticles.com/2012041030149/3-important-economic-conditions-of-mughal-empire-in-india.html
Not the only bit of context. There’s also the Irish Potato Famine of 1845-52, about the causes of which Wikipedia has the following to say:
Similarly, the Bengali famine of 1942-3 was exacerbated by insufficient relief and extreme obstinacy and lack of sympathy on the part of Churchill. On that famine, read Madhusree Mukerjee’s Churchill’s Secret War: The British Empire and the Ravaging of India during World War II.
Don’t get me started on the complete annihilation of the Native American culture by American colonists (very far from exclusively British). There’s nothing worse than a foreigner telling you how shit your country was, while ignoring the universally accepted norms of the time, and I am sure you wouldn’t like it.
I will accept lectures from (Subcontinent) Indians, but I think Americans are pushing it a bit.
BTW, there was a Scottish potato famine too. You can’t accuse us of keeping the disasters to ourselves. Come to that, our industrial workers weren’t exactly living off the fat of our, er, stolen possessions, either.
I happen to be Irish-American, so I think I have reason to be interested in famines.
And I am the one who brought up on this forum just today the disgraceful matter of the internment of Japanese and Japanese-Americans by the U.S. during World War Twp. I am quite willing to face the U.S.’s misdeeds.
I brought up the Indian famines (and the brutal suppression of the Great Mutiny) because it was being alleged that, because Britain has been giving aid to India, maybe it doesn’t have any obligation to return the diamond in question.
What is really shocking about the Bengali famine is that it occurred so recently, came so close (estimated at 3.5 million) to equaling the death toll of the Holocaust, and involved figures who were still prominent within my lifetime.
Although even more recent American misdeeds like the Vietnam War and the wars against Iraq have, I must admit, had comparable death tolls.
@ Lysias: God, you pompous, tedious and irrelevant article. But, hey, we can resolve this dispute. Just return the 3,119,884.69 square miles of territory you stole from us and I’ll see what I can do about giving the Koh-i-Noor back to its previous owners. Deal?
Baal – that was the NORAID-sympathising side of our Transatlantic Friend we were being treated to.
Irfan Habib’s ‘Agrarian System of Mughal India’ should put it in some context.
If India doesn’t want, Pakistan should demand and get it.
Unless Punjab’s governor, one Mohammed Sarwar, father of Anas Sarwar, of Glasgow, doesn’t want it neither.
In which case. I’m sure Iran would welcome its return.
They are not kowtowing, they are doing what the BJP has done forever and that is to re-write history to make India – and specifically non-Muslim india – look stronger and less influenced by ‘external’ civilisations than it might have been. And so, if the diamond was ‘gifted’ to the British, it makes it look as though the Indians were string enough then to have done that, rather than them being robbed of it by a stronger, and colonising, power. Of course, Ranjit Singh hadn’t exactly come by the diamond through chance or charitable donation. he extorted it from the fleeing King of Afghanistan. But of course, the King of Afghanistan didn’t come by it through chance or charitable donation…. and so on and so on.
How far have descended down the shitter that the luminaries contributing to this post have simply ignored the right from wrong, just from unjust, rule of law from lawlessness, legal from illegal, by simply ignoring all those principles/aspirations and behaving as in the worst of the ruthless desperado and criminals and brutal bullies, by condoning the theft because the the item in question was stolen in the first place.
So what is wrong with setting up an board of inquiry to establish who the rightful owners are, and handing over the diamond to them? But hag on,it was stolen by someone else so now that we have stolen it, it is ours!!!!
Do these people ever stop and think how vile they actually prove to be?
how come the paintings stolen during the WWII have been getting returned to their “rightful owners” the precedence is already there. But hey hang on we can come up with myriads of excuses for excusing theft and injustice, fully well happy/content that it is a corner stone of our value systems!!!!!!
“how come the paintings stolen during the WWII have been getting returned to their “rightful owners” the precedence {sic}is already there.”
___________________
One reason might be that the events in question are recent and not lost in the mists of history?
Think!
So theft is not theft!!!
As ever there is your goods, your friends’, neighbours’, tribes’, etc. and that is classed as theft as and when nicked, and then there are the others who can whistle Dixie as theirs is “lost in the mists if time”! Don’t read the comment and comprehend instead let your deluded mind run with it and let it rip.
Not predictable at all, at all, from the likes of you SICSICSICSIC
PS. the cat is grammar and spelling gauleiter to, now! SICSICSICSIC that one too!
I think your answer is in Suhayl’s post. Ultimately the diamond belongs in the ground. Then to the guy who found it, then…there are limits to what is possible in the way of restitution even if we accept that it is possible to apply today;s extremely flexible moral standards to events lost in the past. Perhaps we would be more profitably employed in addressing today’s growing inequalities of wealth rather than ensuring the right high heid yin has a right to the shiny stones? I mean, here we are getting the collective blame for stealing the bauble, but I cannot remember personally benefiting in any way from the theft.
Re. the paintings, I’d love to bang on a bit about the expropriators of the workers and their habit of collecting expensive art as a nest-egg, but I haven’t time right now.
Ba’al as you put it, the current problems are due to the “flexible” principles that has brought about the amorality that is feeding the wealth inequality further, because there is no longer a firm cardinal point to hang our tacks on:
Lying is bad, theft is bad, cheating is bad, murder is bad, covering up the truth is bad, stealing through legal means is bad*.
The disgusting spectacle of the “ordinary” people excusing theft, and plunder because it was our side that did it, opens the door to all manner of other exceptional-ism; “he earned it good on him”!
How did he earn it? how many people did he deprive of their wealth? how many people did he exploit? all suddenly become moot points that no one wants to entertain and anyone who dares to mention it, becomes subject to the fishwife treatment ; “them are envious they are!”
Principles ought not be flexible and elastic to suit the occasion, we need to get back to the firm belief that evil is abhorrent and doing good is the only viable option. Won’t delve into the ground, etc. But it must be unacceptable to our society to lie, to cheat, to steal, to tax dodge, to murder, to waste resources, to run the joint for the benefit of the few at the expense to many!
Then and only then we can see the gradual return of a modicum of justice and faint glimmers of real human rights being respected.
I’m saying let’s prioritise the principles as they apply today. Let’s universalise the criminalisation of theft NOW. That’s quite enough to be getting on with, ffs. Let’s not waste time and effort on long-dead thieves. And hey, I’m waiting for an apology from Siraj-ud-Daula*. Think I’ll get one?
* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_Hole_of_Calcutta
I really can’t get that exercised about crystalline carbon.
All I can add to this is Sir Sidney Ruff Diamond…
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3l_3-23zAWM
I think that was an appropriate intervention. THanks.
Indian rightwing nationalists versus British rightwing nationalists, not an edifying spectacle. Playing to the gallery All persiflage to disguise economic looting of ordinary people. It’s just a big distraction.
Agree. Wholeheartedly.
It is bad enough to see senior Indians kowtowing to that lazy bald bloke and his skinny wife, on the very expensive luxury holiday I am paying for, without also seeing the Indian government playing lickspittle in court.
I’m sorry I had to repeat that. It is a gem…
Quite a gem! The focus on physical features reminded me – without a grin – of the vapourings of a poster who has, happily, gone on to pastures greener….
This is also worth repeating. (Sorry Mark, I can’t think of a more relevant way of linking this piece to your comment, but I want to post it exactly here)
http://www.jordantimes.com/news/local/unesco-panel-adopts-resolution-submitted-jordan-palestine-al-aqsa-mosque#sthash.zrkU1Loa.dpuf
You’re a diamond geezer, Mark!
I see the Indian government has now agreed the diamond should stay in the UK. Amazing what you can do with a couple of smiley royals, eh?
Sounds like a fair deal – if we keep the diamond, can they keep the royals?
Some here may say we have inflicted more than enough hardship on India already.
Somebody ignorant said: “And I, Craig, sometimes wonder about your strange compulsion to attack the British state”.
It’s called “Democracy”. Democracy is defined as “government by the people; especially : rule of the majority “a government in which the supreme power is vested in the people and exercised by them directly or indirectly through a system of representation usually involving periodically held free elections.” The term “democracy” first appeared in ancient Greek political and philosophical thought in the city-state of Athens during classical antiquity. It comes from the word “Demos”, meaning the ordinary citizens of an ancient Greek city-state, considered as a political entity; population; the common people.
So citizens holding the government to account is a defining part of a “Democracy” and Craig holding the government to account is democracy in action. A democratic government should be honest and open at all times, and Craig is simply doing his duty as a citizen.
I wouldn’t be at all surprised that Modi or a future Indian leader be invited on a State visit to Britain, and the queen herself, or her successor, hand the Koh I Noor to said Indian leader.
Coincident of course with a renewal of and cementing of relations between the two great friends.
And plenty of deals etc.
There’s simply no purchase in the current court case.
More birds for the same stone, you see.
President of India, of course.
“.. exiled to Scotland, where he was held effectively a state prisoner until his death.”
He lived the major part of his life master of a 17,000 acre estate in Suffolk and died in Paris.
Yes he only seems to have lived in Scotland for three years, 1855 to 1858, and lived the life of an English aristocrat in Suffolk hosting lavish shooting parties and a guest of the royal family at Osborne.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elveden_Hall
Think everyone is missing the fact that the diamond is a trapping of monarchical states which India has not been since 1950 when it adopted an elected head of state.
India is saying it does not want the diamond because when the UK took it, it was a monarchy which considered Indian states as its own.
In short, it’s putting an important political principle over just its monetary value.
“The Koh I Noor diamond was voluntarily gifted by the Sikh ruler Dulip Singh to the British government”
Because that’s what the victors history said had happened.
“to that lazy bald bloke and his skinny wife”
I understand the sentiment but he can’t help being bald and there is no need for body shaming fat or thin whoever the target is. He probably had his fill of public school style bullying as a youth.
No idea if he is lazy, he is as much a victim of his upbringing as Cameron,
“to that lazy bald bloke and his skinny wife”
You’re right! That should read “to that lazy bald parasite and his skinny even bigger parasite”.
He can’t help being born a parasite, but she chose to marry into a family of parasites.