“Electoral advertising regulation can’t work in a busy election period, can it?”
This is probably the only challenge we (rarely) hear as to why electoral advertising regulation for fact-based claims might not work.
It isn’t the case of course, as the precedent in other countries demonstrates. For example, it has been up and running for several decades in New Zealand with all the parties bought into the process.
Well, to put it to bed once and for all for the UK we ran a pilot “Election Advertising Review Panel” (EARP) several years ago in the 2022 local elections which worked very successfully. You can hear its chairman David Puttnam discussing it here.
So we’ve formed it again to demonstrate how regulation could work in a General Election.
We have invited seven senior people from inside and outside the advertising industry to create an executive that reviews factual claims in election ads and judges whether they are truthfully presented or otherwise.
The members of the panel are:
- David Puttnam, Chairman
- Chris Morris, Chief Executive Offier, Full Fact.
- Marina Purkiss, Political Commentator & Podcaster.
- Harriet Kingaby, Co-Founder, Conscious Advertising Network.
- Poppy Wood Managing Director, Reset.
- Richard Lindsay, Director of Legal & Public Affairs, IPA.
- Gemma Charles, Deputy Editor, Campaign.
The process will work in a not dissimilar way to how the regulatory process for commercial advertising works with the Advertising Standards Authority.
The panel will be forwarded ads to July 4th with a brief summary of the issue raised about the ads and evidence / source of any transgression (of the electoral ad code we launched earlier in the year).
Members will be asked to provide a view within 24 hours whether the ad meets the standards laid out in the code.
We’ll keep you updated on progress on our Twitter / X feed @clearpolitic5.
Reform Political Advertising