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Wednesday 1 September 2021

It's time to dissolve the National Trust



The Critic has published a very nice hatchet job on the National Trust. Well worth reading in full as the quotes below are merely a taster.

Tim Parker, who’s just resigned as chairman, had the same role at the Post Office while they were wickedly persecuting subpostmasters over supposed fraud (in fact IT failure); Helen Ghosh left her position as director-general in 2018 to run Balliol College, Oxford; previously she was permanent secretary at the infamously institutionally incapable Home Office. This is the ignorant, complacent, uncultured, bureaucratic establishment that has primly taken the Trust to its present sorry place...

For over a decade the National Trust has consistently indulged gangster-capitalist attitudes towards their holdings and responsibilities as a landlord, regularly and demonstrably bullying tenants, visitors and employees alike, alongside mass redundancies and exploitative policies which run contrary to their fundamental purpose.

This abhorrent catalogue of immoral business practice is spearheaded by a tired, faded Who’s Who of bland establishment figures with no specially relevant qualifications or expertise in heritage, casually trampling working class livelihoods and pensioners’ qualities of life, whilst posing smugly for photos at fundraising events and enjoying bottomless expense accounts with no apparent accountability.

The following paragraph is likely to linger with me because of its relevance to wider aspects of political life and what it describes as "the copy-and-paste civil service aristocracy who now run all institutions identically".

Of course, they argue that permanently obscuring, modernising, or destroying some of the historic property they have been tasked to preserve is justifiable if they use the profits from said destruction to better preserve the rest. By this rationale, they’d be justified in selling, demolishing or redeveloping half of all their properties, so long as they then invested the profits into preserving the other half. It’s psychopathic business logic, of the sort we are too familiar with thanks to the copy-and-paste civil service aristocracy who now run all institutions identically, with no apparent qualifications beyond the lifelong accumulation of wealth and/or power.

6 comments:

Sam Vega said...

I'll read the whole thing later, as it shows every sign of being both hard-hitting and accurate. Particularly interesting is the coexistence of the "gangster capitalist" mentality with the soppiest and most superficial woke sentiments. If they were really that tender minded as to be aggrieved about black servants' conditions, or the vicissitudes of Victorian transvestites, then they would be unable to run the organisation so ruthlessly.

wiggiatlarge said...

The article is very good, as it says the NT has been heading in this direction for years, having got their boot in the door without much of a protest they are now going full steam ahead with their objectives.
They made a big mistake when they stopped a garden only ticket being sold at Blickling Hall here in Norfolk, you now pay for a ticket for hall and grounds even if you only want to see one or the other.
Despite a big protest they still carried on as they know best!

Tammly said...

I refer you to my comment of the 28th May last.

Anonymous said...

And then the RLNI.

DiscoveredJoys said...

A word I've become fond of is 'clerisy' - an educated and intellectual elite. A group or class of persons enjoying superior intellectual or social or economic status.

So if you consider yourself to be a member of the clerisy you won't get any pushback from them if you act in your own favour and against that of other groups. And eventually, by employing people from your class (or their children), you change the nature of the organisation to reflect your own group concerns.

A K Haart said...

Sam - I agree, it they were tender minded they would be unable to run things so ruthlessly and there is plenty of evidence that they are ruthless. Disputes with the NT do not go well for the little people.

Wiggia - we'd probably have visited Blickling Hall while on holiday in Norfolk, but knowing a place is in the hands of the NT puts us off these days.

Tammly - not forgotten. If you ever feel like putting together a blog post on your experience you can email it to me.

Anon - I've not been following RNLI problems although I'm aware that there are or have been issues with the national organisation.

DJ - it is a good word and probably worth adopting as general term because it does fit well with what is going on today. Our modern clerisy certainly give themselves a superior intellectual and social status. I think this is why BBC salaries are so high - it isn't a case of rewarding talent.