Dude, They Elected You "Mayor," Not "Mum"
Who votes these people in?

Jon Bryan writes at Spiked:

If re-elected as mayor of London, Sadiq Khan says he will ban gambling advertising on the London Underground. 'I've already banned body-shaming advertisements and advertisements for foods high in fat, salt and sugar on the TfL network because of their impact on the health of Londoners. Given the devastating way gambling addiction can destroy lives and families, I'll instruct TfL to bring forward plans to extend the ban to harmful gambling advertisements on the network', he announced in his manifesto this week.

Who here thinks gamblers need advertising to do their thing?

There is no clear evidence that gambling ads are in any way damaging. As one advertising expert has pointed out: 'Advertising plays neither a significant or even a casual role in problem gambling or harm in general.'

This censorship thing has been a pet of Khan's:

Censoring what Londoners and visitors to London can see on trains and buses is not new territory for Khan. As he himself says, he has form in this area. Shortly after his election in 2016, he banned 'Beach Body Ready' adverts. Two years ago he banned junk-food adverts. He stands accused of hypocrisy in his attitude to ads - he bans some adverts for being 'harmful' but then he awards prizes to others that are not that different. For example, last year he awarded £500,000 worth of free advertising on the London Underground to the hosiery brand Nubian Skin.

I'm guessing "Nubian" was key in who gets a pass.

Given that his junk-food advertising ban led to an organic-food company having to remove images of bacon from its adverts, it seems pretty clear that lots of signs and ads could be swept up in his planned extension of his censorship on London transport.

...What is clear is that, if Khan wins and implements this ban, there will be an impact on TfL's revenue. The junk-food advertising ban costs TFL £13million a year, according to the Financial Times. This week City AM said, 'The decision to ban gambling ads comes as TfL faces a dire financial situation thanks to Covid-19 wiping out a large portion of passenger revenue'. It pointed out that, 'Gambling ads could contribute millions of pounds towards this'.

But the financial impact of the ban is just part of the story. The bigger question is what kind of politicians we want. When you start thinking that your role as mayor of London is to control what Londoners can see, then that is not going to help build a better, freer capital. If Khan wins another term, we'll no doubt see more patronising nanny-state interventions like this one.

Nanny state laws keep consenting adults who want to trade money for sex or money for plants to ingest from doing so, and there's a whole government industry to catching and caging those who take drugs or exchange money for sex.

These laws are hard to roll back once they're in place. We have no right whatsoever to tell adults that they cannot ingest certain plants or choose to pay for sex or accept money for sex. The fact that both are currently illegal in most places in the U.S. does not change that.