By Bagehot

BACK at the start of this year’s autumn conference season, about a hundred years ago or possibly last week, I arrived at a media reception for hacks at the Liberal Democrats’ gathering in Birmingham, only to find myself staring at a jarringly familiar logo. There at this eminently political gathering was the homely badge of the National Trust, the charity that owns or runs hundreds of stately homes, gardens, natural reserves, beaches and forests across England, Wales and Northern Ireland. Now that I am very middle-aged indeed, I spend quite a lot of time at National Trust properties, loading my young family into our sensible people-carrier in search of wholesome, heritage-tinged, fresh air fun. The National Trust is more than just a caretaker of crumbling mansions nowadays: entering one of its properties feels like entering a sort of parallel England, a well-scrubbed, organic, family-friendly sort of place, with the guarantee of a nice cup of tea and scones at the end of it.