George Clooney and London Mayor Rant Over 'Monuments Men'

George Clooneyused the publicity for his latest film The Monuments Men to shed a light on the issue of stolen artifacts and monuments that were stolen during occupations and should be handed over back to their countries.

The Monuments Men follows an allied group of of soldiers who are tasked with finding and saving pieces of art and other culturally important items before their destruction by Hitler during World War II. Clooney mentioned the Parthenon marbles, a Greek monument that was stolen by the British and still exhibited in the British Museum in London, and that they should be returned to Greece, and that “when polled, the British people are overwhelmingly in favor of their return.”

These comments drew the wrath of London's mayor Boris Johnson, who said of Clooney, "Someone urgently needs to restore George Clooney's marbles ...... 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."

“I'd chalk it up to a little too much hyperbole washed down with a few whiskies... “ Clooney commented on Johnson's statement. He went on, that such a case is present in nearly every country nowadays, and that Britain has one of the most obvious objects of monument theft: should it start by returning it, the rest of the world would follow suit.