I saw one of those 'did you know' documentaries not all that many years ago
apparently documents were found in the UK which showed that Gordon was captured by (whoever it was that besieged Khartoum - arabs, Egyptians, a posse of very poor geography students?)
and offered to the British Empire for ransom and concessions and they decided that it wasn't in their best interests to have him back
smacks of the CIA in Vietnam (allegedly) nothing changes
however there's also a campaign idea in this
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