The lying game
Wednesday, July 31, 2024 at 10:50 There are a lot of accusations of lying flying around at the moment.
Chancellor Rachel Reeves is accusing her predecessor, Jeremy Hunt, and the last government of lying about the state of the nation's finances before the election, and Hunt is responding with similar language.
This is a rather tenuous link but today is the tenth anniversary of the publication of an article by former MSP (and MEP) Brian Monteith entitled 'Why do governments lie? Because they can!'
It was published on The Free Society website that no longer exists but was active from 2007-2014. I do however have all the articles on an Excel spreadsheet and I'm going to publish Brian's article below.
But first, some background.
Ten years ago this week, after a tortuous 18-month process, the ASA Council rejected Forest's complaint about a Department of Health advertisement that claimed that 'Every 15 cigarettes you smoke will cause a [cancerous] mutation'.
ASA stands for Advertising Standards Authority and the extraordinary thing is that the ASA executive (the people who are employed to run the organisation) upheld our complaint THREE times during that period.
Each time the Department of Health – with their far greater resources – would appeal and the final adjudication went to the ASA Council led by former Labour minister Lord Smith.
For anyone interested here are my blog posts published at the time:
At last, the ASA verdict on Forest complaint about DH "mutation" ad
On the record: that Forest-ASA correspondence in full
Failing that, do read Brian's article (published on July 31, 2014):
Why do governments lie? Because they can!
It's official! If you want to tell lies in an advert it's OK if you are the government. The state can get away with it, for other advertisers the costs might be painful.
The evidence for this bold claim comes from none other than the recent adjudication of the Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) Council following a complaint by Forest about an advertisement broadcast in January 2013 by the Department of Health.
You may remember it. A man goes outside his back door (note he is not shown smoking in the house) and lights up. As he smokes the cigarette mutates and grows ugly tumours. According to the voiceover:
When you smoke the chemicals you inhale cause mutations in your body and mutations are how cancer starts. Every 15 cigarettes you smoke will cause a mutation. If you could see the damage you would stop.
On behalf of Forest, [campaign manager] Angela Harbutt submitted a complaint to the ASA on 14 January 2013 based on two counts: first, that it made misleading claims (about the mutations) and, second, there was an omission of material information (substantiating the claim).
In Forest's opinion the advertisement was therefore in breach of the Advertising Code. So began a long and tortuous process of making a complaint about a government department's false claims.
On 5 March (ie two months later) the ASA e-mailed to ask for permission to use Forest's name in correspondence with the advertiser and in the final adjudication. Forest consented by return.
On 3 September (eight months later) Forest wrote to the ASA complaining about the slow progress of the complaint, making the point that:
As you will be aware, it was January 2013 when we first lodged the complaint. Eight months later we are still awaiting a decision on the matter. There have been no follow up questions - indeed no communication at all from the ASA to Forest for some considerable time.
According to Angela Harbutt:
I note that in this period the ASA has ruled on at least three complaints on tobacco-related advertisements. All three complaints were submitted by high profile anti-smoking groups against the tobacco company Gallagher Limited.
A12-208266 complaint submitted by ASH, ASH Scotland and Cancer Research UK
A12-210929 complaint submitted by Cancer Research UK
A12-213116 complaint submitted by Cancer Research UK
I do not know if the ideological stance of the organisation making the complaint has any bearing on how a complaint is investigated by the ASA. Nor do I know if the fact that we are making a complaint against a government department, rather than a corporation, has influenced the ASA's approach or attitude towards this investigation.
Whatever the reasons for the failure of the ASA to make an adjudication on our complaint to date, I do not believe this is a particularly complex matter to investigate. From the information initially provided, and the responses from the Department of Health sent to me and forwarded to the ASA, it seems all too clear that the Department of Health mislead the public in the advertisement in question and a statement to that effect should be issued without further delay.
On 12 September the ASA responded, stating that all organisations are treated equally but that the science surrounding mutations is complex and time is being taken to consider all the papers being supplied by the DoH - whose responses to ASA enquiries 'have not always been as swift as we would have hoped'. A promise was made to be more regular with updates.
On 9 October Forest e-mailed again to ask about progress, asking if the review had been completed.
On 10 October the ASA replied explaining that the delays were caused by the DoH response requiring an external expert.
On 1 November the ASA e-mailed Forest with its draft recommendation:
As you can see from the attached we are recommending that your complaint remains upheld. The report is a draft recommendation and the decision and wording will rest entirely with the Council, who may see things differently.
If we change the draft recommendation materially as a result of comments we receive, we shall tell you. If no material changes are needed, the draft recommendation will be forwarded to the Council for consideration. We shall write to you again to tell you the Council's decision. Please treat the draft recommendation as confidential until the final report is published.
On 15 January (2014) Forest's Angela Harbutt wrote again,
It has now been one full year since I submitted a complaint to the ASA regarding the above government advertisement. This is an extraordinarily long time to be waiting for a ruling on this matter. It is also over eight weeks since you supplied me with the ASA draft ruling on this matter.
Can you please advise what stage you are at in 'seeking further clarification' from the government on this advertisement, and when we might expect a final decision from the ASA? As stated previously I do not think that the government, or any other advertiser, should be allowed to delay matters unnecessarily, particularly given that the misleading advertisement is still widely promoted and available on YouTube, and probably other outlets.
On the same day the ASA replied:
In exceptional circumstances, some investigations do take longer than we expect, as is the case with your complaint; we are hoping to meet with the Department of Health in the coming weeks to facilitate a resolution to the investigation.
On 3 February Simon Clark, the understandably frustrated director of Forest, wrote:
I am writing to request an urgent conclusion to our complaint which was submitted over 12 months ago. You said you were 'hoping' to meet with the Department of Health 'in the coming weeks' to facilitate a resolution to the investigation.
'Hoping' isn't good enough. Nor is the vague timescale 'in the coming weeks'. Please advise exactly when that meeting will take place and when, finally, the matter will be concluded. I am sorry to have to write in these terms but the delay in concluding this matter is totally unacceptable and reflects poorly not only on the advertiser but on the ASA itself.
On the same day the ASA responded:
This investigation has taken longer than expected due to the very complex nature of the evidence provided to support the advertised claim and, to an extent, the time it has taken the Department of Health to respond to our queries regarding that evidence.
Following our recent meeting (24 Jan), we can confirm that we will be asking an expert to consider points raised. We expect to appoint an expert in the next week and for them to provide their assessment within another two weeks, after which we will draft a revised recommendation, inviting comments on its factual accuracy.
We hope to present our recommendation to the ASA Council mid-March and the final decision and wording will rest entirely with them.
On 18 February the ASA emailed to say:
We have appointed an expert to provide a report for us. We hope to receive this within the next two weeks. Depending on the outcome of that report we may issue an additional draft recommendation for parties to comment on. We will continue to update you on key developments of our investigation as they arise.
On 1 April Simon Clark of Forest wrote:
It is now almost 15 months since we submitted [the complaint] and six weeks since you wrote to me saying you hoped to receive a report from an expert 'within the next two weeks'. As the weeks go by it gets increasingly hard not to put this matter in the hands of a member of parliament with a view to raising this issue with the relevant minister in the Department of Health.
On 7 April the ASA replied:
As you can appreciate we are required to consider any expert report in detail and if necessary ask further questions for clarity. We are now in a position to update our recommendation and I hope to be able to send this out soon.
On 17 April the ASA issued its second draft recommendation:
As you can see from the attached we are recommending that your complaint is upheld.
The report is a draft recommendation and the decision and wording will rest entirely with the Council, who may see things differently. Please ensure you have made all the points that you want to make.
If we change the draft recommendation materially as a result of comments we receive, we shall tell you. If no material changes are needed, the draft recommendation will be forwarded to the Council for consideration.
We shall write to you again to tell you the Council's decision and the publication date for the final report. Please treat the draft recommendation as confidential until the final report is published.
On 24 April Simon Clark wrote:
Can you tell me when the recommendation is scheduled to be put to the ASA Council and the estimated publication date for the final report?
On the same day the ASA replied:
If the Department of Health have comments that require a revision to our recommendation, the draft will be delayed. However, if the Department of Health have no comments to make on our draft recommendation, we will put it forward to the ASA Council next Thursday. Their full comments will be available to us by the following Wednesday.
If the Council are divided in their deliberations, it may go forward for a vote which will take a further week. You should be aware that in some circumstances, the ASA Council may ask for the case to be presented to them at their monthly meeting at our offices. If this is the case, they will have the chance to discuss it during their meeting in late May.
On 2 May Simon Clark wrote:
Can you advise me what is happening?
On 7 May the ASA replied:
We are considering the Department of Health's response and will decide if any changes are required to our draft recommendation. I hope to be able to do so next week.
On 5 June the ASA wrote:
As you will be aware, we contacted an expert to consider the evidence submitted by the Department of Health, which they responded to in detail. It was then necessary to ask our expert to comment on their response.
Their comments were received yesterday, however I have had to go back to them on a point of clarity. I hope to hear back from him soon. I hope to be able to provide a more definitive update once we have considered our experts replies in detail.
On 10 June the ASA wrote:
We have made minimal amendments to our draft recommendation. Because we do not consider our changes to materially affect our recommendation we will not be inviting further comments. As you can see from the attached we are recommending that your complaint remains upheld.
On 25 June the ASA wrote:
The ASA Council considered our draft recommendation over the past week. Due to comments they have made, it has been decided to present the case to them at their next face-to-face meeting on July 18. I should have the outcome of that meeting shortly afterwards.
On 19 July the ASA wrote:
The ASA Council has now adjudicated on your complaint and DISAGREED (our emphasis) with our recommendation that the ad breached the Code. The attached report will be published on the ASA website on Wednesday 30 July and we ask you to treat it as confidential until then. We realise this decision will disappoint you, but thank you nonetheless for taking the trouble to raise the matter with us.
So there we have it - the long and winding road of how, after three draft recommendations upholding the Forest complaint, the ASA Council sides with the government.
Note how the DoH delayed the process, how it required an 'expert' for something they were already promoting in an advert and presumably were confident about stating - or do they just make it up as they go along?
Note how meetings are required with the DoH (confidential of course) and how the ASA then had to get its own expert to consider the DoH defence - but still rejected that defence - only for the Council to repudiate its own officials.
Is there any point to complaining against the government lies? Somehow I don't think we have heard the last of this sorry episode.
See also:
Forest slams ASA decision on DoH smoking ad claims (Campaign)
Pro-smoking group fails to stub out NHS smoke free ad (Marketing Week)
Forest vows to appeal ASA “inexplicable” decision on Department of Health ruling (Drum)
Reader Comments (1)
Every action to expose the falsehoods of anti-smokers and Public Health is worthwhile. We may not get the results we seek, but it is far better than remaining silent. CCSR applauds FOREST for your tenacity in the face of such deceptions. The War on Smoking is the spear tip of socialist totalitarians in Britain, the U.S., and worldwide.