Boris Johnson's March on the Institutions sees top editors lined up as regulators

Charles Moore and Paul Dacre at the vanguard of Conservative ‘culture grab’

Charles Moore, former editor of the Daily Telegraph. Alamy Live News

A report from Britain’s National Trust audited the UK’s portfolio of heritage properties for links to slavery and its findings that 93 of the stately homes were tainted by association provoked howls of outrage from an unexpected quarter.

Leading Conservative voices denounced the state-backed owner of palaces and rural estates for an exercise in political correctness.

Former editor of The Telegraph newspaper, Charles Moore, who was recently nominated for a seat in the House of Lords by Prime Minister Boris Johnson, targeted in particular the National Trust's director of culture and engagement, John Orna-Ornstein.

The trust’s finding that 93 of its more than 400 properties were built with links to slavery was described as a manifesto, not a useful handbook to the properties.

Mr Moore warned that there was more to come as the body, which has six million fee-paying British members, set up an “independent external advisory group … many with lived experience”.

“From what has appeared this week, we can be confident that the Trust’s poor, Covid-hit six million members are now in for a long, grim ‘representation and interpretation project’ designed to make them ashamed of being British,” he wrote.

Emboldened by last year’s general election result that returned a stable majority party government, Conservatives have set their sights on a range of institutions that are seen to be dominated by a liberal, metropolitan elite.

Guy Opperman, a Conservative MP, wrote to Culture Secretary Oliver Dowden asking for a government review of the National Trust.

Mr Opperman accused it of degrading the very heritage it should defend with a blanket shutdown during the Covid-19 pandemic.

Mr Moore, a former boss of Mr Johnson, is at the centre of intrigue surrounding another national behemoth, the BBC, after reports emerged that the prime minister wants to appoint him as chairman.

That report caused uproar borne from the belief that Conservatives want a US-style fightback against a liberal cultural narrative.

It also said that Paul Dacre, a former editor of the rabble-rousing Daily Mail newspaper, was being lined up to lead the media regulator Ofcom.

That powerful post would make Mr Dacre a key gatekeeper in not only policing broadcasters but also the country’s approach to hate speech and extremism online.

The resignation of Andrew Neil, one of Britain’s leading broadcast interviewers, from the BBC provides another straw in the wind.

Mr Neil has signed up with a new venture, GB News, that is designed to bring a more explicit editorial style to rolling television news.

Critics have claimed the channel will bring US-style broadcasts to the British media scene for the first time.

Conservatives have been calling for a rebalancing of influence in the media and state-controlled bodies for years.

The Policy Exchange think tank said a “higher-managerial” caste had gained advantage through recruitment policies designed to ensure appointments were made on merit.

“One central aspect of appointment policy is to encourage ‘diversity’,” it said in a 2013 report.

“Whilst ‘equal opportunity’ and ‘diversity’ are essential concepts, this study has found that the implementation of ‘diversity policy’, both under the Labour government and the current coalition, has a fundamental flaw.”

The Taxpayers Alliance, another think tank, estimated that more than 1,000 appointments were made to public bodies in 2018-19 and that despite the Conservative-run government, more loyalists of the opposition Labour were still getting through the system.

“Public bodies or quangos carry out much of the government’s work, with their responsibilities growing significantly ... the departments for culture, health, transport and the environment being especially reliant on these semi-autonomous bodies to deliver public services,” it said.

Dominic Cummings, the prime minister’s chief of staff, has also said the civil service is under scrutiny as a stronghold of resistance to the government’s outlook and agenda.

Mr Cummings has said a “hard rain” is coming for the permanent officials’ staffing departments.

When he was an adviser to the education minister almost a decade ago, he dubbed the elite of the education system “the blob” for its stubborn refusal to undertake reforms proposed by politicians.

An announcement last week said teachers could not use material from organisations with “a publicly stated desire to abolish or overthrow democracy, capitalism or to end free and fair elections”.

Commentators see a march on British institutions from within the government and overtones of the culture war that has dominated US politics in recent years.