Friday 4 July 2014

Gagging Law

The Lobbying Act has been dubbed the gagging law by some people as it restricts "the ability of third parties to campaign in election periods" according to The Guardian, here. It reports that Labour are reviewing how big money affects politics and that they have pledged to repeal the Act.
It is my view that the problem isn't one of big money per se, but that money should only be spent on politics in a fully transparent way and that all campaigns should be rooted in evidential truth. Unfortunately, in Britain today, political advertising isn't covered by the Advertising Standards Authority and there are no sanctions against baseless political claims. I don't see the problem if big money were used to research facts and promote them, as Joseph Rowntree did at the beginning of the 20th century, but cash for questions or secret funding of politics is a deplorable corruption of democracy. Instead of a gagging law I want to see a law against lying in politics.

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