To inform our submission to the Government’s consultation on imprints for political ads (i.e. showing who is responsible for their production and publication) the Coalition For Reform in Political Advertising has run research with YouGov that found:
- 85% of the UK public agreed that it was important “…that political parties’ adverts do not make false or misleading claims”
- Similar results across the sample for those that voted Conservative, Labour and Liberal Democrat in the 2019 election and Remain and Leave in the 2016 EU referendum. The result for each of these groups were:
- Conservative 89%
- Labour 88%
- Liberal Democrats 97%
- Remain 92%
- Leave 87%
- A study we commissioned in December 2019, found that 87% of voters thought that ‘it should be a legal requirement that factual claims in political adverts must be accurate.’ We conducted a very similar study in December 2018, when the level was 83%. Both pieces of research were also from YouGov.
You can download the raw data from our latest YouGov research below.
Our research also found that voters consider the regulation of the content of electoral material to be more important than identification of it source. 81% thought it was important that “…it is clear which political party is responsible for an advert?’”
We believe that the regulatory focus on imprints whilst necessary is insufficient. We are concerned that Cabinet Office / government is using the introduction of digital imprints as a means to continue to avoid the pressing need for many reforms that have been identified, including the regulation of material (quantifiable) claims in electoral advertising. The latter is a key issue we’ve been campaigning on for several years.
About the Coalition for Reform in Political Advertising
We are a politically neutral, not for profit organisation run by unpaid volunteers set up by practitioners in the advertising industry.
Read our review of the 2019 election Illegal, Indecent, Dishonest and Untruthful, How Political Advertising In The 2019 General Election Let Us Down that was covered extensively by the BBC in the last week of the election.
Please contact alex(dot)tait(at)reformpoliticaladvertising(dot)org if you’d like to cover or discuss the research.
