How votes are being fixed in a fight for our countryside by Robin Page, the Mail on Sunday, 2nd September 2001
Forget for a moment, the Tory
leadership election. Over the past ten days, two-and-a-half
million ballot papers have been pushed through letterboxes
throughout England and Wales - almost eight times the number of
Tory ballot forms. Yes, it's time for the National Trust's annual
election of members for its ruling council, and this year 16
candidates are standing for nine available seats.
Two years ago, I stood but failed to get elected by a whisker.
According to a National Trust insider, I received the largest
individual number of votes but didn't make it because of the
proxy votes cast by the chairman of the National Trust, Charles
Nunneley, a London banker. With more than 1,100 farms in its
possession, evidently the chairman thought that I, as a farmer
and founder of the Country Restoration Trust, one of Britain's
only practical farming and conservation charities, was most
unsuitable. Because Mr Nunneley had such personal power, the
election became little more than a farce, with the chairman
securing his own nominees. Astonishingly, it was overseen by the
Electoral Reform Society. This year, Mr Nunneley himself is
standing for re-election. As a result, instead of having all the
proxy votes as usual, to vote for himself, these have been given
to the existing council. The council has also refined its abuse
of the democratic system by putting an asterisk on the ballot
paper against the names of those candidates it wants elected.
Guess what? There is no asterisk net to my name. What a blow; a
third rejection in 18 months. First I was sacked as Country
Living's "wildlife and countryside adviser" for not
fitting in with the magazine's sanitised view of the countryside.
Then I was dumped by Jane Root, Controller of BBC2, as presenter
of One Man and His Dog. My crime was to object publicly to the
urban Ms Root's dumbing down of the much-loved series. Now comes
the rejection by the National Trust hierarchy, too. Why it should
want to interfere with the election is a mystery. Does it believe
its members are too stupid to make up their own minds?
The present Director General of the Trust, Fiona Reynolds, previously worked in Tony Blair's Cabinet office. If all those with asterisks are elected, perhaps Tony and the Cabinet will put asterisks next to all New Labour candidates at the next General Election. One candidate with interesting new labour connections in the National Trust elections is Dr Richard Ryder. He is a long-time animal activist and has worked for two anti-hunting organisations: the International Fund for Animal Welfare (UK), a private company, not a charity, and its offshoot, the Political Animal Lobby. It would appear that Dr Ryder was director of the PAL when it donated £1 million to the Labour Party in 1996. Neither PAL, nor Dr Ryder has been available for comment during the writing of this article. Interestingly, Dr Ryder does not mention IFAW or PAL in his potted biography on the ballot paper.
Mr Nunneley's potted biography is also interesting. He is famous for his hasty and ill-conceived policy of banning deer-hunting on Exmoor - flying in the face of the Burns report, the Government's own excellent inquiry into hunting. I do not hunt, shoot or fish, but there is no doubt that deer-hunting on Exmoor is important socially, environmentally and economically to that isolated rural community. There is also no doubt that the donors of land to The National Trust in the West Country supported hunting on their land.
In the light of all this, it is odd that Mr Nunneley is a pheasant shooter, a sport that many find far less defensible than hunting. Strangely, Mr Nunneley fails to mention his love of shooting in his biography. Just as strange as the asterisks for the likes of Nunneley and Ryder are the lack of asterisks for the likes of philosopher Roger Scruton and TV chef Clarissa Dickson Wright. Roger Scruton has given the best expose of the supermarkets I have heard, and a few months ago even Tony Blair admitted that supermarkets had the farmers in an 'armlock'. Similarly, 'Fat Lady' Clarissa understands the countryside and knows that food and farming need farmers and rural communities - consequently she gets no asterisk.
At my interview with the council, I said I believed The National Trust had treated its own farmers appallingly with rent increases and indifference during a crisis, even before foot-and-mouth. But, unfortunately, 'fudge' is a word that sums up The National Trust best. It has great potential to help the countryside out of a crisis, and its loyal members deserve better. After all, a free and fair election is the democratic rule of thumb throughout the civilised world - except here, in Britain, with The National Trust.