Simon Hart, Conservative MP for Carmarthen West and South Pembrokeshire, has welcomed the Advertising Standards Agency ruling against an RSPCA advert, saying it was “blatantly misleading, partisan and mischievous”.

This week, an advert by the RSPCA calling to ‘vaccinate’ not ‘exterminate’ badgers has been ruled as misleading and cannot be shown again in its current form.

The Advertising Standards Agency (ASA) made the ruling on the advert, which appeared in the Metro in June, after 116 members of the public complained about its content. MP Simon Hart and the Farmers’ Union of Wales also lodged complaints.

Simon Hart MP told civilsociety.co.uk that the advert was: “Blatantly obviously highly misleading, very partisan and outside the boundaries that you would normally expect.”

He said: “I think the worst thing about it was that they were seeking to get public support and public funding from this particular advertisement, and to do that on the back of a misleading advert is pretty mischievous.”

Alongside an image of a syringe and a gun, the advert stated: "VACCINATE OR EXTERMINATE? The UK government wants to shoot England's badgers. We want to vaccinate them - and save their lives".

It continued: “The government's proposed badger cull could begin at any time, despite scientific evidence that slaughtering thousands of England's badgers is unlikely to stop the spread of bovine TB in cattle. Will you help us continue our campaign to stop the cull?”

The ASA upheld one complaint and rejected three others in its ruling. It said that the line of the advert stating that the government wants to shoot England’s badgers was likely to mislead by implying all badgers would be eradicated in the cull areas.

Those rejected include complaints that the advert implied that the RSPCA would be undertaking the vaccinations themselves, as well as a complaint that the suggestion that vaccination are a viable alternative to the cull is misleading.

The RSPCA said it welcomed the judgement but disagreed with the assertion that the term “exterminate” was misleading.

A spokesperson said: “The advert referred to the fact that removing more than 70 per cent of the badger population in the cull areas of Gloucestershire and Somerset is a virtual eradication of a much-loved species in these areas.

“We still believe the word “exterminate” accurately describes this and that the public would have been aware at the time of the plan to eradicate 70% of badgers.”

The RSPCA added: “We sympathise with farmers over bovine TB in cattle, and care as much about cows as we do about badgers but share the views of leading scientific experts that a cull would be of little help in eradicating bovine TB in cattle and could even make it worse in some areas.”

Hart said: “The ASA ruling is perfectly clear and, irrespective of the argument, charities can’t make inaccurate claims in order to fight political campaigns or raise money from members of the public.

“It doesn’t really matter what cause they represent but they can’t go out and expect the punters to force out large sums of cash on the back of misleading advertisements.”