The National Trust is behaving like a big business rather than a charity
The message from the National Trust’s director-general in its magazine ‘said literally nothing about its more than 200 historic houses but moans about “unfair access to green space” and campaigns for bills in Parliament. No feature concerned architecture, though there was (of course) a piece about “queer creativity” in country houses.’
Charles Moore writes in the Telegraph,
Too many charities are putting Left-wing activism before serving the causes for which they were founded
Charities in Britain are in trouble. Some of the bigger ones deserve to be. They tend to put government lobbying and Left-wing political activism before serving the causes for which they were founded. They become career paths for future Labour and Green politicians and quangocrats. Their top salaries easily exceed that of the Prime Minister. No wonder donations are dropping.
This is noticeable in nature charities. As a country-dweller, I like the work of the Wildlife Trusts in caring for rare habitats. Earlier this month, though, I received an email from Craig Bennett, the Trusts’ chief executive, reacting to the newly announced Conservative policy to abolish Natural England and the Environment Agency, two of our most overmighty quangos.
After sounding off against “Starmer’s war on bats and newts”, Mr Bennett launched into the Tories: “Now the Conservatives want to try this divisive, scapegoating tactic again, but on a much bigger scale… they will expose the UK’s economy to dangerous weather, the UK’s food supplies to biodiversity collapse and UK homes to flooding and extreme heat.”
Why this angry, overblown and tendentious rhetoric? It is uncharitable. The Trusts appear to be mindlessly aligning with bureaucratic and statist interests. Mr Bennett reminded us that the Wildlife Trusts gang together for polling with the RSPB, National Trust, Woodland Trust and WWF to help campaigning. Is that charitable money well spent? Big Nature is acting like Big Oil.
I am also a member of the National Trust. Its 84-page autumn magazine, contained a message from its director-general, Hilary McGrady, which said literally nothing about its more than 200 historic houses but moans about “unfair access to green space” and campaigns for bills in Parliament. No feature concerned architecture, though there was (of course) a piece about “queer creativity” in country houses. Almost everything else is nature related.
From its foundation, the Trust has had a dual purpose – to look after historic buildings and places of natural beauty, but now it ignores the first and uses the second for activism. How about nurturing the nature in its care instead of cutting down on gardeners?
This Friday is the last chance to vote in the National Trust’s Council elections. I shall vote for the Restore Trust list of candidates who want to put things right.