Why Alan Bennett is wrong about the National Trust

His new play is a romp about attempts to save a crumbling stately home – with the National Trust as chief villain. Chairman Simon Jenkins has a few bones to pick with its elitism

Alan Bennett closes his new play People with his heroine saying: "Let lost be lost. Let gone be gone, and not fetched back." It is a neat way of rounding off Bennett's assault on the National Trust, and on "people" in general.

The play is a lightweight romp through Bennett's familiar fare of ancient institutions, male...