The Advertising Standard Agency’s recent ruling on the Government’s climate change advertising campaign begs one big question for the PR sector ahead of the looming General Election: is spin screwed?

In banning two press ads, the ASA advised that Government advertising should be more “tentative”. Viewers had apparently found them misleading, scaremongering and distressing.

So, tentative. If the previous three General Elections, particularly the 1997 one which was lauded as the dawn of the age of spin, had seen a more tentative approach to party political PR, the media outcomes would most likely have been very different.

Choice of words is rarely more important than in pre-election PR. So what would happen if a watchdog (alright, strictly speaking there isn’t one) waded in and ruled that electoral media spin must be restricted, with all words intended for editorial pick-up phrased tentatively?

We haven’t had the list of 2010 election pledges yet. But here are three recent press releases from each of the main UK political parties, and how those stories may have looked if a more tentative approach had been taken:

Labour
- For the last 10 years the Conservatives have been concealing the truth – Straw: Government concerned that some people may have been a little on the opaque side, at times
- Action on ant-social behaviour: Measures are mooted on what things may be feasible to deal with behaviour that some may deem not in the best interests of members of society at all times
- Securing the recovery is essential – Gordon Brown: Economic prosperity might be a good thing for some people, says the man we understand to be Prime Minister

Conservative
- Conservatives call for investigation into lobbying scandal: Conservatives ask fairly nicely about whether questions could potentially be asked about whether or not lobbying rules were not entirely adhered to
- Labour undermines ivory ban: Opposition could ask for scrutiny of possible Government lack of support for planned changes to ban (tsk tsk)
- Conservatives propose radical overhaul of Britain’s energy policy: potential alternative plans are made public; any inference that the current Government has not done things right is not necessarily intended

Liberal Democrat
- Government must honour cheap tickets pledge for Olympics says Foster: the Government should really, if it can find it in its heart to do so, come good on the probable assertion it may have made about the Olympics
- Pensioners must be exempt from broadband tax says Foster: People who may no longer be young and could claim pensions should probably not dip into their pockets over the internet’s future
- Nick Clegg calls for cross-party Council of Financial Stability: LibDem leader may have uttered something about a potentially joined-up way of tackling the deficit, if indeed such financial conditions currently exist

Spin. Best stick with it, and stay cynical.