ASA Washes Its Hands Of Political Advertising Regulation
The Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) has criticised the political parties of the UK for failing to come up with their own code of self-regulation for complaints regarding political advertising.
As of January this year, and the publishing of the 10th edition of the British Codes for Advertising and Sales Promotion, the ASA no longer considers complaints about “any advertisement, whenever published, whose principal function is to influence voters in local, regional, national or international elections or referendums.”
The Neill Committee on Standards in Public Life, along with the ASA, have previously recommended that the political parties should devise a mechanism for self-regulation. “It is unfortunate that the political parties have not yet agreed a code for election advertising,” said the ASA in its Summary Report yesterday. “Or agreed how such a code might be enforced.”
In previous editions of the British Codes of Advertising and Sales Promotion a halfway house was granted to politicians, which let them off the rules regarding substantiation, truthfulness, testimonials, comparisons and denigration in advertising. This put the ASA in a difficult position whereby complaints about the “New Labour, New Danger” campaign, featuring Tony Blair with devil’s eyes, were upheld because the Labour leader had been pictured without his permission, but the “Same Old Tories, Same Old Lies” campaign was found to be outside the ASA’s remit, as political advertisers did not have to prove their claims.
Despite the political parties’ lack of action on self-regulation, complaints about advertising about this year’s elections will be directed to the politicians, not the ASA. “Voters will decide for themselves what is “decent, honest and truthful”, while any election advertising that breaches the law will be a matter for the courts to judge,” concluded the report.
ASA: 020 7580 5555 www.asa.org.uk
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