Why aren't politicians covered by the Advertising Standards Authority?

I have reproduced a fabulous and now iconic advert that I remember as a child seeing in American comic magazines (trash mags, as they were called by teachers at my school)- adverts which we knew even as schoolboys were a pack of lies. (Some of the best of these - a real trip down memory lane - are reproduced here).

These days adverts like this are not seen because laws and rules have been introduced by most Western countries that outlaw misleading advertising. In Britain most of this process is overseen and managed by the Advertising Standards Authority (another one of those famous Quango's we are all talking about) although certain types of advertising activity such as online and in-store displays are covered by other regulations.

The Advertising industry realised that flagrant lies and misleading claims in some ads risked creating cynicism and thereby damaging the integrity (and worth) of all advertising and they self-regulated to prevent this.

According to the ASA site:

Self-regulation of non-broadcast advertising as we know it today began 40 years ago when the Advertising Association established what became the Committee of Advertising Practice (CAP), the industry body that sets the rules for advertisers, agencies and media. As the foreword to the very first edition of the British Code of Advertising Practice explained: “The function of advertising is the advocacy of the merits of particular products or services … and this Code seeks to define practices considered undesirable by the organisations which have subscribed to it.”

That was in 1961. The following year, the industry established the Advertising Standards Authority under an independent Chairman, to adjudicate on complaints about advertising that appeared to breach the Code.

"When challenged, advertisers must prove their claims are true. If they cannot prove it, they cannot claim it."

Ever since then the advertising industry has been increasingly strictly controlled, and although strengthened with a number of consumer laws is still largely self-regulated. These days you can be pretty certain that if a definite claim is made for a product (or against a competitors product) in the UK, the facts are there to back the claim and a third party independent adjudicator has passed it for publication.

But not if that advert is made for, or published by, a political party.

From the start the ASA specifically excluded political advertising and political claims, mainly to avoid having to be drawn into political fighting.

The ASA today divert any enquiries about misleading advertising by politicians to the Electoral Commission. The EC's stated aim is to encourage " integrity and public confidence in the democratic process" and although they list a large number of things they promote and monitor on their website honesty in political promotional material is not among them.

So today the most outrageous claims, lies, laughable misinformation and misleading charts and pictures can all be found in the leaflets and posters put about by politicians of all colours. And because party A lies about party B in one leaflet, human nature dictates that party B then makes even more blatant lies about party A in their next publication.

So you see 'X cannot win here' bar charts that wildly exaggerate the relative states of parties, utterly misleading figures on the economy and daft claims about spending cuts/tax rises (delete as appropriate) which serve to simply turn voters off completely.

And before anyone gets too sanctimoneously irate, I specifically include my own party in this - we had some very unsubstantiated claims on posters at the last election which would not have got past the ASA had they been covered by the regulations.

Occasionally someone names names, and makes a claim about an individual candidate rather than his party, and the public are then treated to the unedifying sight of a libel action between two squabbling politicians making claim and counter claim.

This escalating arms race of misinformation is becoming very dangerous, especially at a time when the public are already seriously concerned about the trustworthiness of this Government in particular and all politicians in general.

In allowing false claims to pass unchecked we are creating the very kind of cynicism and disbelief that the advertising industry was wise enough to see the danger in 50 years ago.

The answer is simple. Either the laws and regulations concerning advertising products should include all advertising, including political ones, or new regulations should be introduced forcing the same burden of proof.

Politicians need to be more 'legal decent, honest and truthful' than any advertiser.

Is it Time
to end
this
TV TAX?





Is there a better way of funding the BBC?

I have just had another reminder for the TV licence in my flat in London. I am not an MP and don't have this luxury paid for by the taxpayer, so I have to pay a total of £285 to be able to watch TV all week and all weekend; regardless of the fact that we prefer Sky and ITV.

The current fee of £142.50 represents a rise of over 50% in the last ten years. The BBC argue this increasing amount is necessary because of the extra costs of providing new technology and the growing number of new channels they have. Currently they say the fee provides:

• the television channels BBC One, BBC Two, BBC Three, BBC Four, BBC News, BBC Parliament, CBBC and CBeebies;
• five network radio services, plus BBC Asian Network, and digital radio services BBC 1Xtra, BBC Radio 7, BBC 6 Music and BBC 5 Live Sports Extra;
• regional television programmes and Local Radio services in England;
• national radio and television in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland;
• BBC Red Button, BBC Mobile and the BBC website (bbc.co.uk).

This is a very long way from the original purpose of the BBC which was brought into existence in 1922 as a non profit making corporation owned by it's founding shareholders (including Marconi, Vickers and General Electric) to experiment with public broadcasting. Later, in 1923, it was given a Royal Charter and financed from 1927 via the licence fee "to enrich people's lives with programmes and services that inform, educate and entertain."

Sadly the basic service has been allowed to mushroom and complicit Governments have voted for the BBC licence fee to balloon to keep up. From a few pounds in the 1970's the fee is now a substantial chunk of many homes entertainment income, and while the politicians of the left go on about poverty, latterly 'energy poverty' and now even 'water poverty' none of them seem keen to address the fact the for many poorer households the TV tax is a serious and growing expense they should do without, but can't.

The House of Lords reviewed the charter in 2004 and their Lords report says "Using television receiving equipment without the appropriate licence is a criminal offence subject to a maximum fine of £1,000. In 2003 a total of 96,872 people were prosecuted in the UK for licence fee evasion. No-one can be imprisoned solely for licence fee evasion. However, if an evasion fine is not paid, then magistrates have the power to impose a prison sentence. In England and Wales, 28 people were imprisoned in 2004 for non-payment of licence evasion fines (the average sentence was 14 days). In Scotland 18 people were imprisoned in 2004."

Every time I raise this subject someone pops up and says 'but the BBC make good programmes' and I always reply the same, the BBC don't, the people who work for them do. Those people work for the BBC but could and would work for other broadcasters if the BBC wasn't there. I have never agreed that the BBC is somehow essential, it might have been in the 1950's when it was BBC1 or ITV but today when there are 900 channels I just don't see that it deserves special status.

Having to pay for the BBC is even more galling for those of us who subscribe to Sky or Virgin, it's the equivalent of being obliged to pay for a Jaguar first if you want to buy a BMW, just to keep the firm going.

The time has come I believe to radically review why the BBC exists and consider new ways of providing the public service output that some people say would not be made if there were only commercial channels (still wondering why we need special 'public service' broadcasts but not 'public service' newspapers or magazines, but there you are) .

I have a suggestion. Firstly, we could make the licence fee optional to people who want to watch the BBC, possible now with digital technology. Second, sell off the corporation except radio 4 and BBC2 , estimates vary hugely but SKY - with half the viewers and none of the valuable TV archive material- is worth £8bn, so the money raised from a partial BBC privatisation could easily top £15bn.

Properly invested £15bn would yield enough to finance a decent news and public service broadcast service on one national radio station and one TV channel in perpetuity, without costing you and I a penny, and without needing the expensive TV licencing service, and without cluttering up our courts and prisons with thousands of unfortunate fee dodgers.

If you still wanted to watch Eastenders, Strictly Come Dancing or Holby City then you'd have to pay the BBC subscription; but if you wanted to be "enriched with public service programmes and services that inform, educate and entertain" you could do so on radio and TV for free, forever.

A picture is worth 1000 words, (part2)


I am grateful to the UK Public Spending.com website ( here ) for supplying this revealing chart.

The Government is on course to control more than half the economy by the end of 2011.

Government spending as a percentage of the total economy has only gone beyond 50% during wars. Even during the disasterous 1970's the ratio remained (just) below the half way mark.

Why is this important? The long-term fastest growing economies in the world are all those with the lowest percentage of Government spending in the economy, places like China (27%) and America (37%). The long term low growth countries have the highest general levels of taxation and Government spending, culminating in the Soviet Empire which collapsed through economic failure. Also the lowest growth ( or most recession-prone) periods in our own history have been when tax-and-spend is at it's highest.

Non-Government economic activity is what drives growth in an economy because private economic activity creates profit, thus creating larger enterprises making and selling more goods, employing more people who then buy yet more goods with the money thay have earned.

As the Government spends more the productive economy is squeezed, and with a smaller pool of profit to create future economic growth from the potential for growth is reduced; as we found to our cost during the 1960's and 70's.

A way of illustrating this is to compare a private motorway with a Government one. When roads are built as business ventures on a pay per mile basis a successful (busy) motorway like the M6 extension makes it's owners lots of money and they have both a huge incentive and the income to finance improvements to increase traffic flows and revenue. On the other hand when the Government owns a busy road there is no profit and funding for growth is not created, in fact the reverse happens- more demand creates wear and tear problems and we soon end up with the M25.

When British Rail was wholly state owned in the 1970's Sir Peter Parker, it's chairman, acknowledged that when the trains got too busy his only solution was to increase fares to 'put people off' because new trains would have cost the Government millions that it didn't have.

But there is more bad news, Government spending is also inflationary. The countries with the highest long-run average inflation rates tend to have the highest levels of public expenditure and Government debt.

When the Government spends more it creates other forces that create inflation and suppress future economic growth. When the Government expands spending it goes into competition with the private economy, for example it competes for labour - driving up wage costs. And because Governments run on debt they also compete for money - in borrowing more of the finite money supply they are reducing the capital available to private business, constraining their growth and eventually pushing up interest rates.

The Economist Keynes believed that temporary Government intervention in a recession could prevent deflation and mass unemployment. His theories were born out of the Depression but economists remain split on whether his theories actually work. It is claimed that Keynsian policies followed by British Governments of all colours after the war led to chronic inflation and our relative economic decline until Mrs Thatcher turned her back on his theories in 1979. His fellow economist and critic Hayek claimed that what starts as temporary governmental fixes usually become permanent and expanding government programs and that keeping taxes low and Government spending moderate were the key to expanding economies. History -and the chart above - prove Hayek to be right.

Labour are claiming that their trillions in spending is a 'return to Keynes' and will prevent a recession and unemployment - I believe the reverse, that a deep but short recession has been swapped for a prolonged period of economic instability, inflation and stagnation as the bloated public sector stifles the private sector and civil society.

It's time to dust off the flared trousers and the platform shoes, the 1970's are back.

Scrap Idea

The problem with democracy is that elected people are drawn to grand schemes that try and address more than one problem at once, and in doing so fail to properly address any of them.

Environmental concerns are a classic case in point. Tapping into fears about the sustainability of current levels of industrial activity is too tempting for many politiciansto avoid. And now there is a recession and ministers see opportunities all around to tap into fears of unemployment too. So we end up with bonkers initiatives like the car scrappage scheme.

According to the Government this will:
a) replace polluting old cars with environmentally friendly new ones - saving the planet
b) increase sales of new cars, saving lots of jobs

Now I must confess to having a special interest in all things motoring and I know a lot about cars; and this scheme is the biggest load of hogwash I have ever heard.

For a start it is a myth that buying a new car is ever environmentally friendly even if the new car is massively more economical than the old one. Manufacturing a car is hugely energy consumptive, estimates vary but according to research by Argonne National Laboratory, a U.S. Department of Energy research facility actually making a Toyota Prius uses roughly the same amount of energy the car consumes in 60,000 miles of driving. So even if your new Prius used half the fuel of your old car it would still take 120,000 miles of motoring to get back to square one in planet- saving terms.

What about CO2? Well it's a bit of a myth that new cars are always more CO2 efficient than older ones. Sure old cars like Ford Cortina's are disasterous environmentally but we aren't talking about taking classic cars off the road, the scrappage scheme is aimed at ten year old motors, all the cars on this page are qualifying for scrappage under the scheme. These are cars designed in the environmentally conscious 1990's and which must pass a stringent emission test every year.

New versions of a car model are usually bigger, faster, better equipped and heavier than the old model and often the CO2 figure goes up with the newer car. And in any case the scheme is not linked to CO2 emissions so you could scrap a 1 litre Ford Fiesta and use the money to buy a 5 litre Range Rover if you wanted to.

From an environmental point of view the last thing you should do is encourage a new car to be born. Keeping your old car properly serviced, tyres fully inflated, driving carefully and using it as infrequently as possible is infinitely better for the planet than trading it in.

So if it isn't good for the planet it must be good for British jobs. Well, not necessarily. The truth is that only 15% of the cars sold in the UK are made here, and many of the components they are made from are imported. From a jobs point of view keeping your existing car running is probably more worthwhile, the numbers of people employed in making new cars in Britain is dwarfed by the number of people repairing and making and supplying replacement parts for old ones.

Aside from the environmental issue and the jobs issue there is another important reason why this plan sucks. At a time when consumers are already burdened with too much debt why is our Government spending £300m encouraging people to run up yet more debt?

Good quality marques just don't wear out, rust, or break down like they used to. A ten year old car from a maker such as Mercedes, Toyota, Volvo, VW and BMW is probably only half way through it's design life, even with 100,000 miles on the clock. To encourage perfectly good cars like these to be scrapped while encouraging consumers to pile into a new HP agreement is utter madness.

Trust me, your ten year old car is probably in far better shape than you think. There are some people who believe that this is the real reason car manufacturers needed the car scrappage scheme in the first place.

'A picture tells a thousand words' caption contest

This is a frame capture from Prime Ministers Questions today at the House of Commons. Ministers are becoming accustomed to their man comprehensively coming second in his weekly contests with Cameron but today was spectacularly bad by any standards.

Here Mr Brown has just blurted out that his forecast for Government spending growth is 0%, seconds later the House erupts into laughter but look at the stony expressions from Harman and Jowell.

I think Browns expression is a classic as well. I think he looks like a bloke who has just called his new girlfriend by his ex-girlfriends name; but what do you think he is thinking?

Engine Room to Bridge

"Its worse than I thought, Captain"

The Times has this tomorrow:

"The economy slumped at its fastest pace for 50 years in the first quarter, plummeting by 2.4 per cent, according to revised figures released by the Office for National Statistics yesterday. This is far worse than previous estimates which had showed an already savage 1.9 per cent decline. "

It might be worse than the Treasury thought, but not to those of us operating in the real world.

My business is executive recruitment, we manage jobs in the £50-£150,000 salary range. On-an-off I can trace the history of my firm back to 1964 so we have plenty of other recession experience to fall back on.

The number of speculative unsolicited CV’s sent to us has gone up eightfold in the last 18 months. Traffic to my website pages offering ‘redundancy advice’ is up 288% on this time last year, which was already up 200% on the year before.

We have become blase about listed companies going bust recently, but until last year it had never happened to us. I can think of at least four of my own clients -all major plc’s- that we used to do business with who have gone bankrupt last year alone, and I know of several others in retail and the pub/leisure sector who are a gnats whisker from closure.

One of my biggest clients trades in residual (unsold) FMCG stocks. They buy all the unsold batteries and cleaning materials and sweets and crisps that manufacturers made but can’t sell, and sell them on to bargain stores. Their business is dependent on a supply of excess stock being available. Last year was all all time record (they have been going since the war) because manufacturers had record unsold stocks; they expected a slowing of availability this year as manufacturers slashed production while demand levelled.

Manufacturers have indeed slashed production, as we know by the unemployment numbers, but very worryingly for the economy residual stocks are still piling up all over the place and my client is breaking new records week after week. This means only one thing, as fast as production is falling demand is falling faster.

New Labour have been the most nakedly partisan Government this country has ever had. They set out with a clear mission to stamp out the Conservatives forever and they damn near succeeded.

And now the strategy has failed they are operating a scorched earth policy in the vain hope of destroying anything and everything that could aid an incoming Conservative Government.

They are like the tenants from hell who having already wrecked the flat and stripped it's fittings when they were finally evicted stuck rotting fish under the floorboards to contaminate the place for years afterwards.

Are minorities self-segregating?

For all of my adult life the goal of Governments of all political persuasions has been to encourage social cohesion by integrating all citizens into a single, classless, British Society of equal opportunity. In my book this means encouraging all British citizens to live alongside each other regardless of race, gender, sexual orientation, disability, religion or colour; giving them an equal opportunity to make the best of it, and then celebrating success on merit.

Great efforts have been gone to over the decades to ensure that no minority suffers discrimination, or that no-one is disadvantaged or prejudiced against. By and large this is a job done, in law at least.

In our own English way this has led to many politically-correct rules and tortured language designed to avoid embarrassing anyone by highlighting a difference, but it has also led to an infinitely better quality of life for many minorities, whether you are a disabled person needing the loo or a black person needing a job.

In recent times we seem to have moved on to a new stage, though. The buzzword when talking about minorities has been a classic New Labour phrase: 'celebrating diversity' which by my reckoning seems to be a short step away from saying: 'staying different' .

An example of this is Gay Pride events. It seems to me that having told the world how proud you are to be gay you are inviting the population to treat you differently to someone who is straight. Having spent 100 years demanding the right to be treated the same as everyone else some gay people are creating a gay society that demands not just equal, but special treatment.

The National Black Police Officers Association was formed in 1998 with the express aim of promoting the interests of Black Police Officers. This is creating a distinction that up to that point didn't exist (there has never been a White Police Officers Association in this country thank God) and has subsequently led to a far greater resentment and tension amongst officers than ever existed before because some white officers now feel that Black officers have special advantages.


Make no mistake I don't think there is anything wrong with being different, nor about celebrating it. Where I have an issue is when people choose to celebrate being different and then complain whenever anyone notices. There are lots more examples, the BBC's Asian Network and 'Miss Black Britain' contest are two more that come to my mind of where 'celebrating diversity' comes dangerously close to segregation. The acid test is would it work the other way round? What would be the response to a 'Miss White Briton' contest for instance?

Some of the more belligerent pressure groups have been the tail wagging the dog for a long time - there is a very real danger that this Governments total inability to say 'no' to any minority campaign will end up creating the very state in society we have spent the last 40 years trying to get rid of.