The democratic countries must courageously show a willingness to apply the principles on which their internal system is based to the global sphere
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Party expenditureElsewhere on openDemocracyPolitical parties would not need as many funds as they currently do, if certain political activites were disallowed. I would therefore like to suggest we should ban all advertisements, be they on posters, lamp-posts or billboards, or be they in newspapers, magazines and/or other publications. Other forms of political activity - canvassing, public meetings, rallies etc, along with the publication of leaflets, policy documents, reports and books, as well as discussions and interviews on the media - would be allowed, as usual. But posters and ads, (few of which say very much, anyway), would simply be banned.
To clarify: you're defining an advert - in this discussion anyway - as something the party pays for. So you're banning posters and allowing normal press reports. Fair enough. I suppose you're allowing canvassing, rallies, etc, provided nobody gets paid for these activities. That would make it difficult to employ any staff around election time, or to use any purchased materials. In particular, I can't see how you are managing to ban adverts yet allow leaflets - even when adverts are redefined as above. If a party uses volunteers only, it can distribute leaflets without expense, and perhaps the same volunteers can produce the leaflets. But someone has to pay for the materials to make them: paper and ink at least - even if they are handmade. Why not just accept that leaflets are adverts, and ban them along with posters? Post new comment |
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Mary Taylor said:
Mon, 2008-03-03 17:54
Banning adverts is an interesting idea. I am not sure there is such a clear dividing line, though, between what is an advert and what is not. I am inclined to think that any activity which promotes a specific view or views, or a specific candidate or candidates, counts as advertising. A public meeting involving all candidates is, arguably, not an advert. A media interview could serve as an advert. A book or report may not itself be an advert, but perhaps there would have to be a ban on advertising books and reports pertaining to particular candidates and parties. Leaflets about particular candidates are surely adverts (they are just mini-posters). Newspaper reports which mention some candidates and leave out others, are, arguably, adverts too.
Perhaps the ban needs to be a more radical one - at least, to make it more amenable to debate. Too radical a ban might favour the existing government, as they'd be the only politicians anyone had heard of ...What do others think?
{Ed. I think the distinction lies mainly in whether or not the party actually has to pay something. There are separate rules for the way the media covers political activities, (and maybe we should debate those sometime too), but anything which is over and above the press coverage which the media would want to give anyway, and most certainly if there is money involved, I think that is where we should draw the line. (This creates problems, of course, with those newspapers which are openly sympathetic to one party or another, whereupon I suppose we must rely on the press complaints council.) Peter Emerson}