Reform says it will go ahead with an advertising “blitz” after being “flooded” with a whopping £400,000 of donations in 24 hours alone after its 5,000-strong rally in Birmingham over the weekend. Reform says all that the bulk of that support is from small grassroots donors as its membership doubles from 30,000 to 60,000 over the course of the campaign so far. Meanwhile over an entire week the Tories only pocketed £375,000…
Social media advertising is being run from Farage’s account instead of Reform’s. Expect to see the party plastered over papers and websites (it already executed a Mail Online takeover) in the last few days of the campaign as the party hammers home its “we’re the real opposition” message. A strong feat for a startup party…
Politicians seem to be losing track of what they have already banned. On page 41 of the Tory manifesto it says:
“We will bring forward our landmark Tobacco and Vapes Bill in our first King’s Speech. We will continue to tackle childhood and adult obesity and will legislate to restrict the advertising of products high in fat, salt and sugar. We will gather new evidence on the impact of ultraprocessed food to support people to make healthier choices.”
Apart from tucking away Sunak’s “landmark” smoke ban legislation in the middle of the health and social care section and giving it a 15-word sentence, the Tories appear to be promising to ban already-banned products here. The Health and Care Act 2022 has already legislated that:
“On-demand programme services must not, between 5.30 am and 9.00 pm, include advertisements for an identifiable less healthy food or drink product… a person must not pay for advertisements for an identifiable less healthy food or drink product to be placed on the internet.”
There is, of course, no evidence to suggest that “junk food” advertisement bans work – not that that will stop both parties aggressively out-nannying each other. The government failed to clarify how this will all work via regulation and it looks like Labour is being left to sort it out themselves. No doubt they will go a deal further…
UnHerd is reporting that the Foreign Secretary has acted in response to concerns raised by the Business Secretary, Kemi Badenoch, highlighting a Foreign Office-funded NGO – the Global Disinformation Index (GDI) – manipulating legitimate counter-disinformation efforts to provide cover for the undermining of right-of-centre online publications by blacklisting them with advertisers.
Cameron confirmed in writing that “the FCDO has not funded GDI since 2023, and there are no current plans to do so.” UnHerd reports that Dave then underlined that section by hand, and added, a handwritten “thanks for pointing this out.”
Dave wrote that while countering disinformation from adversaries was important, “protecting free speech is a priority for the department”, going on to say that taxpayers funds should be used to “uphold our values”.
Separately, the Chair of the Select Committee on Communications and Digital in the Lords, Baroness Stowell has written to ministers in the Foreign Office and other departments with responsibility for Media and Creative Industries as well as Tech and the Digital Economy, looking for clarification in regard to GDI funding and influence. Looks like the days of the taxpayer funding efforts to defund non-woke media are over.
Some 46 Conservative parliamentarians have called on the Prime Minister to intervene against the ongoing advertiser “boycott” of media outlets. This is a subject dear to Guido’s heart and wallet. There is a concerted campaign by some smart people on the left to defund right-of-centre media. It first of all requires the delegitimisation of right-of-centre publications (and now broadcasters). This is why you hear the like of Owen Jones repeatedly describing the Spectator and Guido as “far right”. They cherry pick a provocative article, or below the line comment, or the late night ramblings of one presenter to paint the overall output as unacceptable and, crucially, dangerous for the brands of advertisers. They also try to frame the content as “disinformation”.
It works; Toby Young’s Daily Sceptic and the Conservative Woman website are defunded of advertising. Google, which dominates automated programmatic advertising, has effectively blacklisted their content – primarily for airing dissident views over Covid measures. Whatever your view of their content, this is unhealthy for democracy. During the pandemic, Guido’s YouTube account was locked by the algorithm when we featured content from Nadhim Zahawi – who was at the time the vaccines minister. Ditto when we featured an interview with Donald Trump by Nigel Farage where Trump disputed the presidential election outcome. Twitter deplatformed the New York Post during that same presidential election for breaking the story about Hunter Biden’s laptop. It was alleged – falsely – that it was a Russian intelligence operation. Hunter is now facing related charges evidenced by content found on the laptop. It can’t be good for democracy to have tech platforms censoring content in response to political pressure.
In a bizarre business move, Swedish cider company Kopparberg has suspended all their GB News advertising after a left-wing Twitter user complained they’d hosted Nigel Farage as a guest. Guido has no doubt Kopparberg will also be suspending ads for BBC, ITV and Sky, who have all interviewed Nige’ on numerous occasions…
If boycotts are Kopparberg’s thing, Guido can only oblige and encourage its readers to abandon the Swedish brand. Guido will instead happily recommend several British cider companies that won’t leave customers with such a bad taste in their mouth…
- Thirsty Farmer cider, based in Nottinghamshire and made by the same family since 1880. It’s a small British company, though still stocking Morrisons and the Co-op…
- Dunkertons black fox organic cider, is a delicious cider from the Cotswolds. The perfect drink to enjoy throughout this glorious British summer
- Jack Rite sparkling cider will go down a treat with friends on the July 19th
- Henderson’s Toffee Apple cider is the brew for readers with a sweet tooth
- Brexit Bellevie is a beautiful, refreshing drink that champions the cause close to co-conspirators’ hearts. Readers could crack open a bottle in celebration of today’s trade deal with Australia…
Nivea has also apparently announced a boycott, though Guido’s altogether less familiar with brands of moisturiser. Imperial Leather moisturiser seems an appropriate alternative brand…
Guido has contacted Kopparberg for comment.
The business backed campaign to unlock the economy, Recovery, is not a crazy bunch of covid deniers or anti-vaxxers. Their stated aim is to speed up the opening of the economy now the vaccination campaign has covered the vulnerable and starting to cover low-risk adults. A reasonable position, the sequencing is a matter of debate and as the PM told us dependent, on the data. The poster has been banned.
JC Decaux, the world’s largest poster company, have refused to run it saying “due to the political undertones within the messaging of the artwork we are unable to run this campaign.” JC Decaux has run countless political campaigns over the years, so that’s nonsense. The Government itself has spent £184 million on advertising over the past year, a fair proportion with JC Decaux.
Similarly, a poster site at Salford owned by Trafford Council, banned the poster from being used. Trafford Council said
“… unfortunately we won’t be able to carry the client on the TraffordCity roadside digital. As explained these roadside sites sit on Trafford Council land who have to approve artwork… Having looked at the website, unfortunately this would NOT be allowed as it is political and breaches our advertising policy.”
The campaign offered to change the poster design to no avail.
One-sided bans on political advertising are a dangerous form of censorship, like a lot of what is going on currently it is a slippery slope. Recovery is making a fair-minded political argument about the timing of the wind-down of this lockdown. We don’t suspend democratic argument in pandemic…
