Letter : Trust's ballot secrecy due to class divide

Sir: Earl Kitchener and John Wilks are certainly not alone in their uneasiness about the secretive nature of the National Trust's ruling council (letter, 3 October).

I must be one of many among the Trust's 2.3 million members, not among the Great and the Good, who noted that the council recommends us to vote against the motion calling for open statement about the numbers of mandated and unmandated votes cast by the chairman.

The rationale given by the Trust is that we should not expect to be given details of how members vote, and have no right to. The council cites the opinion of Lord Olivier of Aylmerton, a former Law Lord, in justification.

But we all know that Law Lords often disagree with each other, and I feel quite justified in disagreeing with the view of his Lordship. We are not asking for any breach of a secret ballot, only to know total votes cast in various categories. In any government election, local or national, we are provided with numbers of votes cast for each candidate, and can thus assess how much support a particular party or policy attracts, regardless of whether the votes are cast in person, by proxy or by post. As I read the motion, it asks for no more than this. Despite the recommendation of the council, I have already voted for the motion.

I am increasingly concerned that the governance of the largest and wealthiest charity in England and Wales which, according to its centenary publicity, is "for everyone, for ever" - is at best benevolently paternal and at worst downright patronising. It is from long-term members like myself, deeply appreciative of much of what the trust does, that a large part of its income is derived; and to be treated with the mixture of patronage and disdain once reserved for "loyal servants" or "peasantry" sets my teeth on edge. This latest recommendation is only the last of many examples of such elitist disregard for those of us (ie most of us) who are not at the top table.

Should we be surprised? An analysis of the Trust's governing council, numbering 52 members including chairman and deputy, is illuminating: the majority represent county land-owning interests, 15 per cent are titled, 30 per cent also sit on the executive committee (26 per cent of these are titled) and 6 are also regional chairmen.

On any demographic analysis the trust's council and executive are ludicrously non-representative of the modern population - and alarmingly representative of a small group with shared vested interests.

I looked in vain for names I recognised in the arts, natural sciences, architecture and engineering, who bring enthusiasm for their fields to the general populace. They are not there. Perhaps "populism" is also disdained? I assume these areas are represented and, I have no doubt, by honourable men and women; but where are the best-known, most creative and innovative shapers of change and wise conservation in our society? Not, apparently, on the trust's ruling body. It is surely time some of them were.

It is also time to dispense with the paternalism and patronage of an aristocratic, land-owning clique in the administration of a great and trail-blazing charity. It was initiated to care for our common landscapes and our common history, not to perpetuate the attitudes, values and behaviours of Whig grandees.

I am delighted that "one of their own" has been moved to ask for more openness. We groundlings need to go further, to ask loudly and often from whom the council of the trust derives its power, in whose interests it is exercised, and to whom it is accountable; and if the answers are unacceptable in a modern democracy, to change both the constitution and the governing personnel of the Trust by any rational, democratic means open to us.

LESLEY WEBB

Rothbury, Northumberland