Lord Balfour descendant demands Government action over attacks on British culture

Great-nephew of former foreign secretary condemns those who feel ‘entitled to attack the totems’ of British culture and history

A descendant of Arthur Balfour has demanded that the Government and institutions take firm action over attacks on British culture, after a portrait of the Edwardian-era prime minister was defaced with red paint.
An activist with the radical group Palestine Action spray painted a portrait of Lord Balfour, who promised the Jewish people a homeland while foreign secretary in 1917, before taking a knife to the artwork, which hangs at the University of Cambridge.
The current Lord Balfour has condemned the act of vandalism and called for firm action to curb attacks on the symbols of Britain’s past.
Roderick Balfour, the fifth Earl of Balfour and the great-nephew of Arthur Balfour, also suggested there should be an educational shift to produce young people who have a greater respect for the UK’s national heritage.
He told The Telegraph: “It’s very alarming that we have people who feel entitled to attack the totems of our culture and history.
“What is needed is what was called the ‘smack of firm government’, firm action that makes clear that this cannot go on. There seems to be a lack of common sense around this.
“The painting is not a great one, it’s not a Van Gogh, but it is a symbol of our past, our history that has been attacked.”
He added: “There appears to be no respect for the country that has educated them, that has allowed them the lives they have. There is a sense of entitlement to all this.”
The work was created by Philip Alexius de László, a high-society portraitist, in 1914 and hang in Trinity College Cambridge, Arthur Balfour’s alma mater.
The prime minister and later foreign secretary drafted what became known as the Balfour declaration in 1917, a document that outlined Britain’s intention to support the founding of a Jewish state, though not at the expense of any group.
Trinity College put out a statement following the activist action saying that the police had been informed and the college “regrets” the incident, adding that “support is available for any member of the College community affected”.
Palestine Action issued an Instagram video justifying the vandalism with captions that read: “Written in 1917, Balfour’s declaration began the ethnic cleansing of Palestine by promising the land away – which the British never had the right to do.
“After the declaration, until 1948, the British burnt down indigenous villages to prepare the way; with this came arbitrary killings, arrests, torture and sexual violence including rape.
“The British paved the way for the Nakba and trained the Zionist militia to ethnically cleansed [sic] over 750,000 Palestinians, destroy over 500 villages and massacre many families. The Nakba never stopped, and the genocide today is rooted and supported by British complicity.
“Now Elbit Systems, Israel’s biggest weapons manufacturer, uses Britain as a manufacturing outpost to build arms which are ‘battle-tested’ on Palestinians.”