The Centenary Celebration That Wasn’t: League Against Cruel Sports’ Embarrassing Blunder
In December 2024, MPs gathered in Parliament to celebrate the League Against Cruel Sports’ centenary – an event epitomising the charity’s failure to perform even basic historical due diligence. The League Against Cruel Sports had spent an entire year – and untold resources – celebrating their 100th anniversary, without anyone at the League bothering to verify their founding date.
A Fundamental Failure
The truth, revealed by the Henry Salt Foundation, is both simple and damning: the League Against Cruel Sports was founded in 1925, not 1924.
This wasn’t hidden knowledge – the League’s first public meeting on November 25, 1925, is documented in online newspaper archives. Moreover, founders Ernest Bell and Henry B. Amos themselves recorded the founding year in the League’s own journal, Cruel Sports. Yet under the leadership of Chair Dan Norris MP, Acting CEO Chris Luffingham, and trustees Viktoria Emilova Petrova, Astrid Clifford, and Ashleigh Fiona Brown, not a single person among the League’s staff of nearly 50 people – including their “Intelligence Team” – showed any interest in verifying these basic facts before launching their year-long celebration.
The depth of this oversight became even more apparent when the League proudly displayed a misidentified photograph in its centenary materials. The image claimed to be of co-founder Ernest Bell, was proven to be of someone else entirely. For an organisation with nearly 50 staff members and access to a century’s worth of archives, such errors reflect more than simple oversight – they suggest a fundamental disconnection from the League’s heritage.
A Year of Mounting Failures
The centenary blunder caps what can only be described as a year of unprecedented missteps:
- The departure of its CEO in March 2024 led to allegations that Chair Dan Norris had silenced criticism of Labour’s hunting stance
- “Barons Fest,” the League’s planned July extravaganza at Baronsdown sanctuary to mark “100 years of compassion,” was quietly cancelled without explanation
- The Annual General Meeting, originally scheduled for September in London, was downgraded to a sparsely attended Zoom call in October
- In December, Private Eye revealed that Norris had delegated sensitive Chair duties to his mayoral adviser, Alex Mayer, granting access to confidential League documents
The parliamentary reception in December 2024 served as a fitting finale to this cascade of errors. After Dan Norris hosted MPs and stakeholders in celebration of a false anniversary, Chris Luffingham posted photographs on X (formerly Twitter) showing senior staff and trustees holding generic “Time for Change” placards at the event – an unintentionally ironic testament to the League’s current state.
A Legacy Under Threat
The League Against Cruel Sports was founded on principles of compassion, integrity, and truth. Its early leaders meticulously documented their struggles and achievements, creating a legacy that deserved careful stewardship. Instead, the current leadership has demonstrated an indifference to this history that borders on negligence.
As the League approaches its actual centenary in 2025, fundamental questions must be asked:
- How could basic historical fact-checking be overlooked by an entire leadership team?
- What does this error reveal about the League’s current priorities and management?
- Who will be held accountable for this public relations fiasco?
The League’s founders built an organisation dedicated to protecting wildlife and fighting cruelty. Today’s leadership owes them – and the League’s supporters – more than ceremonial celebrations. They owe them competence, respect for history, and a genuine commitment to the League’s founding principles.
Instead of empty platitudes about “Time for Change,” perhaps it’s time for real change in how the League Against Cruel Sports is managed. The wildlife the League claims to protect deserves nothing less.
