Yahoo News reports that the Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) is investigating the recent Home Office poster van campaign targeting immigrants and dubbed the ‘racist van’ due to the crass insensitivity that is a hallmark of the Whitehall PR machine nowadays (posts passim).
The ASA has so far received 60 complaints expressing concerns that the advertisements were “reminiscent of slogans used by racist groups to attack immigrants in the past”.
The racist van was driven around the London boroughs of Barnet, Hounslow, Barking & Dagenham, Ealing, Brent and Redbridge – all areas with a high percentage of ethnic minority residents – as part of a £10,000 Home Office pilot scheme, which ended at the end of July.
As a counterpart to the Home Office’s mobile billboard, human rights and civil liberties organisation Liberty drove its own ‘anti-racist van’ around the streets of the metropolis.
