Censorship in the UK?

Okay, so perhaps we don't have it quite as bad as some countries, but it would appear that the Daily Mail and Telegraph would rather only their views were aired in public. Just today they decided to pull (after agreeing a fee with the organisation involved) an advert that was due to appear in their pages, asking questions about whether George Osborne was avoiding tax and whether he was doing enough to prevent others avoiding theirs.

The ad which ran in the Independent, Guardian, and soon on bus stops and billboards around the country.

The group in question were 38 degrees, who I discussed only in my last post, and they had managed to raise over £20,000 through small donations in order to run this advertising campaign in line with the VAT increase, an increase that could be wholly avoided if just a fraction of tax avoidance was tackled, or indeed if Osborne hadn't decided to reduce so many other taxes in the same budget. It would seem that those who disagree with the right-wing media, are not welcome on their pages, even when the issue is in the public interest.

The money which would have paid for the adds in these papers, along with extra money that was already raised after the initial £20,000 mark was reached, will now fund a country-wide advertising campaign on bus stops and billboards, concentrated in areas of key government interest.

38 degrees summary of press coverage of the campaign can be found here.