Editorial: 'Political' clients should be able to use television.(Editorial)

How can it be right that a company such as BP is allowed to use TV to convince politicians and other opinion-formers that it cares about the environment, while a charity is denied space on the same medium to question such claims? The answer is self-evident and goes to show how unfair the rules about political advertising on TV are. So good luck to Animal Defenders International, the charity which last week went to the High Court to challenge them.

ADI is seeking to overturn legislation preventing it from running a TV ad opposing the use of monkeys and apes in circuses on the grounds that it is 'political advertising' and, therefore, unlawful. The fact is the banning of the spot from TV merely makes a monkey of a law, which increasingly looks like an impediment to free speech. Now the time has come to rewrite the rules so campaigning organisations with no political affiliations can communicate via TV.

Just how deeply the situation has descended into farce was evident last year when Ofcom banned a Make Poverty History ad featuring an array of celebrities clicking their fingers to reinforce the message that a child dies of preventable poverty ...