Three cheers for the animal rights group Europeans for Medical Progress (EMP) for giving us something to chuckle about as we head off for Christmas. This group, which masquerades as a scientific organisation, claims that the Advertising Standards Authority “actually upheld three complaints” against them, rather than five as we all thought. EMP claim that the ruling on complaints 3, 4 and 5 were the same, and thus treated as one complaint, and that this is “evident from the adjudication itself”.

OK. Lets take a look. The ASA ruling states that rulings “1”, “2”, “3., 4. & 5” were all upheld. We checked with the ASA and they consider those to be 5 complaints upheld. Presumably this is another example of the “careful research” and “rigorous evaluation” that EMP claim to carry out. Maybe it should be five cheers for EMP rather than three!