OPINION: Political code tomorrow ... never today

Lord Neill’s recommendation that politicians and the ad industry

should agree a new code for party political advertising may be a forlorn

hope.

Most people agree that the present system is an unsatisfactory, cobbled

compromise.

The trouble is that politicians will praise any new code when it suits

them and heartily condemn it when it doesn’t. Agreement on this one

looks as likely, or as imminent, as William Hague’s first prime

ministerial broadcast.