Moderation guidelines

We pre-moderate all of the comments we receive.  ‘Pre-moderation’ means that comments will not be published instantly. Comments will be checked first by moderators who will monitor the site mainly during normal working hours (0900 – 1730, GMT) and aim to process comments as quickly as possible.

The aim is to ensure that comments relate to the particular subject being discussed. Moderation will not be used to suppress legitimate, reasoned discussion.

Sometimes there may be a delay in publishing whilst we seek information from various sources to be included in our response to questions.

We will normally approve comments for publication as long as they:

• are on-topic. Please don’t post messages that are not related
• respect other people. Comments should not be malicious or offensive in nature
• don’t incite hatred on the basis of race, religion, gender, nationality or sexuality or any other personal characteristic
• don’t reveal personal details, such as private addresses, phone numbers, email addresses or other online contact details
• don’t constitute spamming of the site
• don’t impersonate or falsely claim to represent a person or organisation
• are not party political in nature
• don’t include swearing, hate-speech or obscenity
• don’t break the law – this includes libel, condoning illegal activity, and breaking copyright
• don’t advertise commercial products and services

We reserve the right to suspend comments at any time. We read every comment, and respond wherever we can.