Quote ="El Barbudo"You know when I said you had, possibly, a fair point?
I was very wrong, you didn't.
Freedom of speech is valuable and necessary, but quack therapies are wrong, whether they purport to de-gay people, cure cancer or reduce obesity.
It's not freedom of speech that's the issue with quack therapies, it's the fact that they are quack therapies.'"
Quack therapy or not (I have made my feelings on the matter clear), is this issue [ireally [/iabout the quality of the therapy itself? For example, do you think Boris would have pulled homeopathy adverts, or silenced Chinese therapies claiming to get rid of warts?
The answer is obvious.
This was a clear political statement, made days before the London Mayoral Election. The advert had been passed by the relevant advertising standards authority, but Boris sought to use his discretionary veto to pull the ads and gain support amongst the left whose votes he needed to return him to political office.