The Spectator’s Notes | 19 May 2012

The RSPCA is supposed to be a charity, but it seems to be embarking on the modern form of political aggression known as ‘lawfare’. Islamists use this with the libel laws, though the Queen’s Speech has promised to ban it: the RSPCA is trying it on with the Hunting Act. It is launching a private prosecution with 52 charges against alleged breaches of the act. For the first time in hunting prosecutions, it is trying to use ‘body corporate’ arguments to catch officers of the hunt without any evidence of their involvement in the incidents alleged. It hopes by the sheer weight of material about different days’ hunting to prove intent — the problem which has so far made hunt prosecutions so unsuccessful. The hunt it has chosen for all the charges is the Heythrop, whose country, by no coincidence, covers the whole of the Prime Minister’s  constituency. Since the RSPCA has huge amounts of money and often, due to its bogus moral status, gets costs awarded from the public purse, it hopes, presumably, to make life for hunting people unendurably expensive and time-consuming.