Let's do lunch inside the world of advertising

Last month, the Advertising Standards Authority gave a wigging to M&C Saatchi and the Tories for their poster showing Tony Blair with "demon eyes". Don't use it again, said the stern ASA - and it followed up this week by ticking off M&C for three other jobs. What, then, was the ASA going to make of a 48-sheet riposte from BMP DDB and the Labour Party (slogan: "Same old Tories, same old lies")? Despite five complaints, the ASA didn't seem too fussed. As ASA's Caroline Crawford put it: "We don't intervene over the factual accuracy of political ads."

With that kind of treatment, perhaps Labour will soften its attitude towards the industry. At the last election, Labour was committed to replacing the ASA with statutory regulation. But according to Labour MPs, Tony "hands off business" Blair is preparing for a U-turn ...

After the annual Designers and Art Directors awards, production man Richard Phillips was spitting tacks. He's an old-fashioned type who believes ads should shift goods, not win prizes for arty creatives. "I think D&AD is obsessed with style and fad," he said. Where did he say that? Standing outside the D&AD with a brick in his hand? No. It forms part of his formal nomination to join the D&AD's executive committee. As Phillips explains: "If I want to criticise, it seems only fair to try to criticise from within."

More likely to upset Lintas than JWT's fit of pique is the loss of creative director Adrian Kemsley. The 38-year-old, who first made his mark at Saatchi & Saatchi, is to become creative director at Collett Dickenson Pearce.