Spanish inquisition: Scots protest as voters gear up for Catalan indy vote

Police officers were called to the Spanish Consulate in Edinburgh yesterday when members of the Scottish Resistance group held a protest against Spain’s “oppression of Catalonia”. The demonstration comes ahead of the referendum on Catalanindependence,which is being held this Sunday. Almost 800 Scots complained to the Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) in the first half of last year, new figures have revealed.

The vast majority of Scottish complaints claimed that certain adverts were misleading, while 72 complaints deemed them to be “harmful” and 198 said they found them offensive.

Uk-wide, TV continues to be the most complained about advertising medium with 5,127 complaints about 2,272 ads.

Online ads are a close second with 4,062 complaints.

ASA Chief Executive Guy Parker said: “We’re spending more time online, but the mass audience of TV ads means they continue to generate the most complaints.”

Online ads account for the greatest number of individual cases, with the majority being companies’ own advertising claims on their own websites and social media spaces.

Despite receiving fewer complaints, there were 11 per cent more individual ads complained about compared to the same period in 2016.

In total, the ASA received 19.8 per cent fewer than last year between January and June, but the ASA said the decline was due to the prominence last year of the Moneysupermarket ads, one of which alone gave rise to over 1,000 complaints.