UK’S ALL-PARTY PARLIAMENTARY GROUP URGES TV CHANNELS TO AXE GAMBLING ADVERTISING

The Gambling Related Harm All-Party Parliamentary Group (APPG), has written to multiple British TV channels, urging them to halt daytime gambling advertising. 

In a letter, sent to major broadcasters including ITV and Channel 5, the group said: “Gambling companies are sponsoring programmes which seek to glamorise gambling with the aim of targeting women and young people and encouraging them to gamble.”

As a “particularly prominent example”, the APPG pointed to the fact that iconic Aussie soap Neighbours, which is broadcast in the early afternoon when children could be watching, is currently sponsored by Gala Bingo. 

To reinforce their message, the APPG cited disputed and highly questionable Gambling Commission figures suggesting 55,000 11-16 year old’s in the UK are suffering from a gambling disorder. 

AYO.NEWS says:

The APPG, chaired by the fanatical Carolyn Harris MP, lost any shred of credibility a long time ago. As with the anti-gambling mobs’ dismissal of the black market threat if regulations are tightened yet again, their arguments are blinkered, immune to evidence, entirely emotionally-driven, and formulated around immovable ideology – characteristic of the wave of “wokeism” and “cancel culture” (or, to quote Steve Donoughue, who recently resigned from his position as secretariat of the APPG, the forces of “prohibition and populism”), that is now steering the west into dangerous waters. 

The fundamental truth of the matter is that, if we want to live in a free, market-driven society, then businesses must be allowed to market their products and services, and most crucially, consumers must be free to choose how they spend their money and time. Inevitably, this will always lead to some people going too far, and won’t be to everyone’s liking. But, the alternative is that we live in a society where a few pressure groups and the minority impose their will on the majority – which is exactly what the APPG and their ilk are attempting to do. 

By their logic, we should embark on a never-ending crusade to ban everything that causes any perceived harm, which can only lead to a totalitarian dystopia. Because, everything in this world has both positive and negative effects – and whether they are negative or positive will always be subjective. 

Yes, social responsibility and integrity should be high on the list of priorities for all businesses, but it’s time the gambling and media industry stopped kowtowing to what are, regardless of their own inflated self-perceptions, minority, emotionally-driven pressure groups.

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