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The British used to be known for the stiffness of their upper lips

and a ’mustn’t grumble ’ attitude. Goodness knows how a nation of

moaners and over-reactors ever acquired such a reputation. There seems

no limit to what will put somebody’s nose out of joint.

’The airwaves could soon be thick with advertisements for all manner of

indelicacies,’ harrumphed a Times leader last week in response to the

ITC’s proposals to relax its advertising rules.

You would have thought that ’all manner of indelicacies’ must surely

include bizarre sex clubs or videos of unspeakable violence and

depravity, but no - the ITC is quite clear: there will be no relaxation

of the rules governing pornography. ’Indelicacies’ therefore presumably

refers to those sectors that the ITC suggests should be permitted to

advertise on TV, among which are private investigation agencies,

pregnancy-testing services, hair restoration clinics - oh and ’escort’

agencies.

Aha. Escort agencies, as we all know, are a gossamer-thin veneer for

perversion and, well, indelicacy. Thin end of the wedge and all

that.

In no time at all (as a Telegraph headline put it) there will be ’sex

for sale’ ads on TV.

Not only is this sensationalist nonsense - above-board escort agencies

do exist apparently - but it will never happen. Where do they think

private investigators will advertise? In the middle of Coronation

Street? Escort agencies in Who Wants to be a Millionaire. Hardly. Most

of the categories that the ITC is suggesting should be permitted to

advertise will never be able to afford the pounds 80,000 that an average

ITV peak spot commands, let alone a whole campaign-full. If they make it

on to TV at all, they will appear in fringe programmes at fringe times

and with minuscule budgets.

You’ll have to search hard to see them - the airwaves will be never be

’thick’ with indelicacies, at least not advertising ones.

What the ITC is doing - and remember this is the first of at least three

consultation papers - is a bit of long-overdue spring cleaning of the

rules. They are, in effect, proposing a small extension to the freedom

of commercial speech, and that is very much to be welcomed. These

categories can advertise in the press and do. Why should they not be

free to use TV?

The national newspapers are the first to defend freedom of speech if it

affects them, and they should defend it in other media too. There are

threats to advertising freedom in every quarter and they won’t be seen

off unless robustly countered. Advertising self-regulates with great

responsibility in this country, which is why even ads for escort

agencies are likely to be a lot less indelicate than some of the

programmes in which they might choose to appear.

Curiously, while escort agencies make it on to the ITC list, political

parties do not. Judged to be terminally indelicate, presumably. It

remains an oddity that while the government is one of the country’s

biggest users of TV advertising, the party in power must, for the time

being at least, stick with press and poster advertising and an

antiquated system of party political broadcasts. Perhaps it’s as well.

Our airwaves are thick enough with politicians as it is without them

cluttering up the ad breaks too.