Source: The Telegraph >> Read full article and comment
Unveiling a range of party measures aimed at giving children back their childhood, Mr Cameron told GMTV: ”We all know as parents, I have got two young children and there will be many watching this programme, that you do your best as parents but there is a lot of pester power going on.
”What we are saying is that you can’t cut children off from the commercial world, of course you can’t, but we should be able to help parents more in terms of trying to make sure that our children get a childhood and that they are not subject to unnecessary and inappropriate commercialisation and sexualisation too young. This is what this should be about.”
Mr Cameron outlined proposals for punitive measures against firms found flouting rules against targeting youngsters.
He said: “What we are saying is how can we help parents, so for instance, if a company is found guilty of inappropriate marketing to children, it shouldn’t be able to bid for Government contracts for three years. I think that would be a significant deterrent.
“Also, parents when they complain, they are going to have a new way of complaining online and see what other parents are complaining about. I think that will help parents feel ‘I am not alone in this, I am not being left on my own to bring up my children properly, other people are helping me’.
“The Lolita beds and the padded bras and the rest of it, in the end most of those products were withdrawn because of parental pressure, so let’s help the parents to put that pressure on.”
Questioned on whether he was acting too late, given that the Government said they had been working on the issue with the Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) for two years, he said: “Not at all. I’ve been leader of the Conservative Party now for over four years. I made an early speech about this. Four years ago, I started talking about the problems of sexualisation of children…. Continue Reading
