No political TV ads allowed in Great Britian!

Why can't we do that here? CNN is covering the British election today, and they were talking about the differences between their elections and those in the US. They do billboards and print ads, but by law, they are not allowed to do paid political ads.

They also said the ads are a lot nastier than those in the US.

Some columnist initiated a "Hold your nose and vote for Blair" campaign. She offered a free "nose clip" to anyone who wrote to her and asked for one. It looks like a wooden clothspin, and has "Hold your Nose...Vote Labour" printed on it.

I have to admit, the British seem to have more fun voting than we do!!!!

The prohibition on political telly ads in UK is likely due the government-supported BBC being the only game on the island for so long. UKers pay an annual fee of about $200 or more per TV set (IIRC) which supports BBC et al. They have cable and satellite now, but am unsure if the ad ban includes these, probably does.
I think this print-only ads, maybe radio's okay, is a GREAT idea. Should be law here; would reduce the insane cost of running for office at all levels. And stop the sound-bite mentality of so-called political discourse here. Campaigns are just a big wealth transfer from parties, PAC's, etc, to the big media...absurd.
Let's start the movement here!

I guess contacting our Sens and Reps both Fed and State would be a good first step. I guess we also have to recognize that the Media would be totally against it because of all the $$ they make from political ads, but I think most politicians would welcome the idea because I've heard a lot of 'em complaining that they HATE that they have to spend so much of their time asking for money!

I'm also positive that MOST Americans would LOVE the idea. I never met ANYONE who actually enjoys those damn ads!

What the political parties do get is a few scheduled times when they can show a 'party election broadcast' of 5 minutes. From a viewer's point of view, that's not too bad, because the times are printed in TV guides, so you can ignore them if you're not interested. I think this time the 3 big parties got 3 each, and the smaller parties 1 each (there's a formula based on past support and number of candidates this time, I think).

There's a rule for all the broadcasters that their political coverage must be balanced too (which means they tend to do less political satire during elections, since it's harder to balance up jokes - there are 2 comedy programmes scheduled within an hour of the polls closing, because they've been storing up the jokes).

The problem in the US is 'freedom of speech' - for you, it's in the constitution. For us in the UK, the idea is that the airwaves and the licences allowing broadcast are owned by the country, so we get to make rules about their use if we want.

(I can't actually swear that satellite TV doesn't carry political ads, since I don't get it. But I know that the 'balance' rule applies to Sky TV, the main satellite channels that are aimed at the UK, so the ads rule probably does too).

...this would help to stop the flow of lies and deception to some degree i.e. Swiftboat Liars.

We call them "party political broadcasts", or "party election broadcasts" during an election. Political parties are allocated slots based on their representation in the country. Slots last about five minutes, and are generally short talks by the party leader or chancellor. Sometimes, however, they're a bit flashier than that, but parties have limited funds. They run after the afternoon and evening news, and are scheduled and announced in advance. "There will now be a party political broadcast by the XXX party", the announcer will say, and you're in for a tedious three minutes.

Generally speaking, we get about one a month outside elections, and maybe one every three or four days during an election. Sometimes they're quite interesting.

Parties are forbidden from buying ad space in the ad breaks. And a good thing too! It would mean money talks, which would just be wrong.

Billboards, however, they can go mad there, so most electioneering is done on billboards, leaflets and doorstepping.

There's another curious kind of PPB - when the chancellor delivers his budget, saying how the government will spend its money that year, it's a very long and famously dull speech in parliament. But it is followed by the budget statement, which is a five-minute PPB from the chancellor, justifying his budget to the people. This is then followed by budget responses from the two main opposition parties, saying why the budget is lousy.

It's really a rather fair system. I for one am proud of it.

You're absolutely right that the $$ necessary to buy TV ads has corupted our political system, and it's even worse now that support groups of each politician can buy time, and most often, broadcase lies, or implications that lead people to assume things that aren't true.

I really do want to change this system, and I think a lot of others do too. Unfortunately, the power players don't want that, and I'm not sure just how successful we can be.