King Charles, Queen Camilla and the Horrible Heffalump

We love the U.K. but they still can't have Winnie-the-Pooh

When British Prime Minister Tony Blair visited the U.S. in 1998 to meet with President Bill Clinton, his fellow Labour Party MP Gwyneth Dunwoody sensed an opportunity.

She called on the prime minister to demand the return to the U.K. of the stuffed animals that inspired the characters in Winnie-the-Pooh, A. A. Milne’s immortal children’s book. The author bought the bear from London’s Harrods department store as a first-birthday gift for his son, Christopher Robin, who would become the central human character in the stories.

Pooh and the others were then residing at the Donnell Library, part of the New York Public Library system. “I saw them recently and they look very unhappy indeed,” Dunwoody said. “I am not surprised, considering they have been incarcerated in a glass case in a foreign country for all these years.”

She compared the imprisoned Pooh and friends to the frieze from the Parthenon that Britons stubbornly retain despite requests from Greece for its return.

“Just like the Greek…