Balfour fury at Cambridge response to vandal attack
UNTIL now, it’s been best known for a scene in Oscar-winning film Chariots Of Fire which recreates the historic run where students try to sprint 371 yards around its Great Court before the clock finishes striking 12.
But no cinematic lustre can disguise the moral failure which seemingly now characterises Trinity College, Cambridge — according to the Earl of Balfour, who watched in disgust and disbelief as Trinity’s portrait of his great-great uncle, the former prime minister Arthur Balfour, was repeatedly slashed and sprayed with paint by a ‘ proPalestine protester’ last week.
Condemning the attack as ‘wanton vandalism’, the Earl is infuriated by what he describes as a ‘ supine’ and ‘ woke’ response. ‘ The college said it was offering support to anyone “affected” — but shouldn’t the priority be to leave no stone unturned to find the perpetrators?’ asks Balfour, 75.
He’s similarly amazed by what he calls the ‘plain ignorance of the history of the Middle East among these extremists’ who attempted to justify the attack by claiming the Balfour Declaration of 1917 ‘began the ethnic cleansing of Palestine’.
The Earl patiently reiterates the truth. ‘The Declaration addressed a refugee problem but was very clear about the expected rights of existing residents,’ he tells me.
‘To claim that [it] gave away Palestine is a calumny.’
His great-great uncle would have been appalled, he adds, by extremist attempts to ensure that ‘the Jews have no rights to be in Palestine’.
Trinity declines to comment — which, understandably, antagonises Lord Balfour even more. ‘Not to stick up for him is shameful,’ he tells me.
But eloquent support comes from The de Laszlo Archive Trust, which preserves the legacy of Philip de Laszlo, the portrait painter. It said: ‘De Laszlo said of himself, “A portrait painter has a great responsibility — to leave to future generations an historical document of his times”. The violent destruction of Lord Balfour’s portrait seeks to wipe away history.’