The Founder of Entropy Alex Tait is also the Co-Founder of the not for profit and politically neutral Coalition for Reform in Political Advertising. You can download our review of misleading ads in the UK’s 2019 general election here Illegal, Indecent, Dishonest and Untruthful, How Political Advertising In The 2019 General Election Let Us Down.
- The review found that much of the advertising in the 2019 general election is ‘illegal, indecent, dishonest & untruthful’.
- YouGov research commissioned by the coalition found that 87% of adults thought that ‘it should be a legal requirement that factual claims in political adverts must be accurate.’
- The uncomfortable fact is, though, that political advertising in elections remains unregulated, and political parties appear to take advantage of that situation with some seriously misleading advertising that would normally come under the Advertising Standards Authority hammer in any other form of advertising.
The review, the first of its kind as far as we are aware, shows examples of misleading advertising from all the main parties. Examples are included in the above document.
The Coalition claims in the review that while this is a serious issue it is a fixable one – provided that political parties agree to be regulated then it might be possible that the ASA, or a ‘specialist extension’ could regulate this type of advertising, and calls on Lord Puttnam’s Select Committee on Democracy and Digital Technologies to bring parties together.
