My grandfather, Sir John Winnifrith, loved the National Trust and was thrilled to be its Director General helping it to preserve old buildings and countryside. For him, as a socialist, part of the joy was that this would open up an opportunity for the less privileged to access the rich history of Britain. Today I am sure he is again spinning in his grave as the organisation goes further and further down a woke cul-de-sac.
The Charity Commission has ruled that the Trust did not breach its charter in commissioning a report which linked 93 of its properties to slavery or the evils of empire. It did not make any comment on the appalling levels of academic failure in that report, as I exposed here. Grandpa was a scholar and would have been horrified by the piss poor intellectual failings and laziness of that report.
But though a bit of a lefty, my Grandfather would also have noted the harsh economics. The Trust claims that it is so cash strapped that it is having to let a seventh of its workers go. Inevitably, much needed work on some of its properties may also be deferred or cancelled. Yet in spending cash on pandering to BLM, LGBT and global warming activists, it is both wasting resource but also alienating vast swathes of its core membership.
I support LGBT campaigning which is why I have donated to the Peter Tatchell foundation. But I accept others may not wish to back this cause. Folks giving cash to the Trust do so to help buildings, not lesbians. If they wanted to assist LGBT folks, there are other causes to support. The woke slavery report caused mass cancellations of NT membership. With clearance from the Charity Commission, the Trust now says it will continue its mission to sniff out evil colonial links even where they do not really exist. That will see more folks cancel their membership and more financial woes.
It seems that the Charity Commission and our political leaders are unwilling to rein in those running the Trust. If only we had a Conservative Government!
And thus I am sure Grandpa would have concluded, as do I, that the only way to save the National Trust is for a mass boycott. Money talks. And lack of it is the only thing that may make the Trust see the error of its ways and get back to doing what it should have been doing all along, looking after old buildings so that the whole population can enjoy them and celebrate our shared history.