RSPCA on road to "complete calamity"

Countryside Alliance Chief Executive Tim Bonner: On Saturday it seemed, for a moment, that the RSPCA had taken the first step towards redemption and repairing its battered reputation. New Chief Executive, Jeremy Cooper, gave a frank and honest interview to the Daily Telegraph in which he apologised for the Society's failings in recent times whilst reiterating, quite rightly, the extraordinary work that most of its staff do most of the time. In particular he emphasised that the RSPCA must be an animal welfare, not animal rights, organisation and that it had been 'too political' and 'too adversarial'.

Mr Cooper was rewarded with a supportive editorial entitled 'There is hope at last for the RSPCA' and further positive press coverage including a leader from the Mail on Sunday which concluded "The RSPCA's recognition that it is primarily an animal welfare organisation rather than an animal rights campaign is a major step in the right direction".

The result of such honesty, and the first decent press the RSPCA has received in recent years, was an entirely predictable backlash from animal rights extremists, and the fact that Mr Cooper had mentioned hunting and badgers caused them to froth at the mouth even more than usual.

The reality is that the RSPCA has had very little involvement in organised hunting since the Hunting Act came into force. It seems to have brought several prosecutions under the legislation involving poachers, but only five involving hunts in the 11 years it has been in force. Three of those failed completely and disastrously whilst a fourth, involving the Heythrop hunt, was the beginning of the end for the previous regime when it was revealed that the RSPCA had spent £330,000 of charitable donations achieving convictions in a handful of the 52 charges it brought. Meanwhile, there was no better example of the depths of extremism that the Society had sunk to than the previous Chief Executive, Gavin Grant's, call for farmers involved in the Government's badger cull trials to be "named and shamed".

These issues, however, remain at the top of the animal rights agenda and, disastrously for Mr Cooper and the RSPCA, it is that agenda which still holds sway on the Society's ruling council. Earlier this week, in a reaction to the extremist backlash, it published an 'update from our chief executive and RSPCA council' which retreated to the worst ignorant, bigoted and blinkered language of previous years. All the RSPCA's problems are apparently caused by "advocates of blood sports" who want to "allow people to chase foxes on horseback" (hunting seems to be fine for non-equestrians), and "sensationalist media headlines" in "a small number of newspapers". The truth, which had such a brief moment in the sun, is of course that some people in some parts of the organisation have made some very bad decisions, the RSPCA has been unable or unwilling to accept or correct this, and as a result has received criticism from across the media from the BBC to the Mail and everywhere in between.

This U-turn, and most of the problems that have come before, can be traced back to the RSPCA's governance and in particular its wholly elected council, voted for by a few hundred of its membership of around 20,000. It is reported that other candidates were offered Mr Cooper's job and turned it down because of the dysfunctional structure and significant extremist element on the council. This week's events fully justify their decisions. It seems that no real change is possible without change to the RSPCA's destructive governance which is driving it relentlessly towards complete calamity.

And be clear, it will not be farmers, hunts or the countryside which suffers as a result of this idiocy. It will be the RSPCA and the animals it is meant to protect.

Follow Tim on Twitter @CA_TimB.