Who is Lord Triesman?

It’s been a constant question since the 81-year-old Labour peer took over as chair of the venerable Dartington Hall Trust in March last year, within months tearing up the charity’s recovery plan and declaring it needed urgent action to stave off bankruptcy.

Supporters have argued the politician-turned-investment banker is taking necessary measures to push the trust towards stability, following years of drift in which it has survived only through selling land and other assets from its sprawling estate.

It is hard to make out what he is thinking

Detractors say Triesman’s commercially-driven approach is wrong for a charity with Dartington’s history and ethos, especially as it has led to the ending, in its traditional form, of the organisation’s long-running summer music school and also to what amounts to a eviction order for Schumacher College, a centre for ecology studies. As part of cost cutting, staff numbers fell from roughly 360 in summer 2023  to 200 a year later.

Triesman has a background that looks almost impossibly varied. A former Communist party member and university lecturer, his main job is director in charge of business development at the London merchant bank Salamanca. After spending almost a decade running the Association of University Teachers, Triesman was for three years general secretary of the Labour Party during Tony Blair’s premiership, later taking two junior ministerial jobs under both Blair and his successor Gordon Brown.

A big football fan (he is a prominent supporter of Tottenham Hotspur FC) Triesman is probably best known for his two years as chairman of the Football Association, the main body representing the sport in England.

Added to this broad set of experiences is a personality that many who know him would regard as complex. In a magazine profile more than 20 years ago the author and journalist Francis Beckett described Triesman as this “strange, clever, chameleon-like man” who “takes his colour from what’s around him”.

In emailed comments to Totnes Pulse, Triesman insists he respects Dartington’s traditions and is trying hard to safeguard its future. “Dartington has an incredible history.….The change to a commercial culture, where we didn’t rush toward insolvency by doing things that simply lost money, was both a better culture and the only viable one,” he said. Triesman has been very ill and says that due to this he has been unable to grant requests for a more formal interview.

Many reactions to Triesman in south Devon have been positive.

“I found him brilliant and charming,” says one person with a strong connection to Dartington who met Triesman for the first time shortly before his appointment as chair. “Here was a member of the great and the good with a really interesting career mix,  from union leader to Blair delivery boy to merchant banker. I felt he had lots to offer.”

A Devon business person who has got to know Triesman says: “He’s a straight talker. He knew Dartington needed to change and is doing all he can to make it happen.”

Many from the local community who have either met Triesman or seen him speak in larger gatherings also offer a positive view. Georgina Allen, a member of South Hams district council, says Triesman had been willing to share his plans. “He seemed enthusiastic about Dartington and happy to work with local councillors.” Another Devon council representative says Triesman came across as “charming and friendly.”

He’s a straight talker

But it’s not hard to find others providing an opposing – or more nuanced – set of perspectives. One fellow member of the House of Lords says that someone with the peer’s business and politics-centered mindset was “not an obvious” for Dartington as its new chair. Like most of the people interviewed for this article, this person spoke on the understanding of not being identified.

Behind the view of the House of Lords member is the thought that the key goal  of Dartington – as set out by its wealthy founders  Dorothy and Leonard Elmhirst in the 1920s – should remain to promote new ideas in the arts, education, agriculture and industry. Commercial principles – while not unimportant- should stay secondary. According to this thinking it was entirely appropriate for the trust, while trying to keep on top of its finances as tightly as possible, to countenance asset sales over a long period to maintain solvency.

Since Triesman took over, Dartington has given few details about its financial position, frustrating observers keen to discover why he was so adamant in the summer of 2023 the trust was in a crisis just a few months after its auditors had given the organisation a reasonably clean bill of health. The trust is currently 130 days late in filing its 2022/23 report and accounts according to the Charity Commission, and more than two months behind the more relaxed schedule set by Companies House, a government regulator.

Among the critics of the trust under Triesman’s tenure is Jonathan Petherbridge, a former arts chief executive who studied at Dartington. “There are increasing concerns that the trust [under current leadership] is damaging the reputation of Dartington, and that  the composition of the board of trustees does not contain the skills or diversity required to deliver [what should be] the charity’s aims,” Petherbridge says. He adds that “controversial decisions” such as over the summer school and Schumacher “have not been explained, except by mentioning an interpretation of the financial position that has never been shared or scrutinised”.

Focusing on the role in decision-making of Triesman – appointed as chair in late 2022 after a head-hunting process organised by the trustees – one longtime acquaintance of the peer describes him as “a racer”. Explaining this, the acquaintance says: “He’s basically a good guy, and he’s good at talking to people. He likes to get on with a project and do it fast. If he feels he knows what he’s doing, even if he doesn’t, he dislikes other people getting in the way or holding things up.”

Another person who has got to know Triesman through Dartington says: “He is not like any business person I have come across. It is hard to make out what he is thinking nor what are his goals. He has a talent for artful obfuscation.”

Some elements of Triesman’s characteristics became brutally evident around the time of his  abrupt exit from his FA job in 2010. What should have been the pinnacle to the football lover’s career ended in ignominy, after rash allegations he made to a supposed “friend” over lunch in a London restaurant. The accusations related to bribes he said were being paid by Spanish and Russian officials in efforts to win the right to stage the 2018 World Cup.  After the friend sold the story to a Sunday newspaper, the furore not only triggered Triesman’s resignation but scuppered England’s own bid for that year’s competition, upsetting a range of people from government ministers to ordinary soccer fans. Afterwards the peer argued in a resignation statement that he had thought the conversation was private and that his comments over lunch “were never intended to be taken seriously”.

He likes to get on with a project and do it fast

During his brief time at the FA Triesman had already annoyed people in the football hierarchy through a management style viewed as brusque. In an episode strangely similar to how events have played out at Dartington, Triesman damaged relationships with some senior football officials by publicly warning about the levels of debt in the game.

Someone who knew Triesman during the FA tenure says: “There is a bit of self-importance about Triesman. Maybe he thinks he’s better than he’s given credit for. He’s quite a reasonable sweet-talker and likes to portray himself as a bit of an outsider come in to make sense of the messes around him. But he lacks the patience and diplomacy to see things through.”

As to the future,  Triesman has told associates he is suffering from “a very difficult illness”.  There is some evidence this is affecting with his ability to devote time to Dartington affairs. Many people connected to Dartington – whatever their allegiances – will be hoping he makes a good recovery.