Creeping censors
The decision of the Independent Broadcasting Authority to prevent the screening of Sir Hugh Cudlipp's new television documentary is an extremely serious one, and establishes a most damaging precedent. Hitherto, once a general election campaign began the broadcasting authorities, quite reasonably, exerted a certain amount of control over programmes with a possible political impact, in order the better to ensure balanced coverage of the activities of all parties. If this censorial activity is now to be extended backwards, to cover periods preceding a campaign, there can be no certain telling where it will end. If, for example, the IBA ruling about Sir Hugh's programme had been made last December, presumably it could not have been screened at any time between last February and now, because of the potential electioneering situation all that time. Moreover, if, as some students suggest, we are in for a long period of political instability in this country, with elections always possible or imminent, programmes like Sir Hugh's may never get screened at all, and political censorship of television could become as established a procedure in this country as it has been for a long time in France. Thus, insensibly, do we proceed towards abuse and unjustified censorship, not through any decision of principle, but through a series of small decisions of practice.
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