PARTY political advertising should be subject to the same regulations as all other advertisements, a Church of Scotland body has claimed, writes Raymond Duncan.

The Kirk's church and nation committee says the democratic process is threatened when political parties seek to persuade voters by use of advertisements ''not subject to agreed criteria of truthfulness or accuracy''.

The committee says party political advertising is the only form of UK advertising that exempted itself from the major provisions regarding ''substantiation, denigration, unfair comparison and truthfulness''.

The committee supports party political advertising being subject to the same regulations applying to other adverts.

On media standards the committee says questions of privacy, harassment of individuals, the behaviour of the paparazzi and chequebook journalism, were issues brought into sharp focus after the death of Diana, Princess of Wales.

The committee says the question of ''public interest'' is a matter of fine judgment and cannot be resolved by legislation.

''Self-regulation by the press remains the best option as anything else would threaten the freedom of the press..''

The committee also maintains the merger of Scottish Television and Grampian Television giving ''media dominance'' to the Scottish Media Group raised important broadcasting issues in Scotland and this had assumed even greater significance post-devolution.

There was a danger, said the Kirk body, that the group, owners of The Herald and the Evening Times, was becoming dominated increasingly by financial concerns.

''Issues of regionality in broadcasting would be seriously compromised if the SMG were to be driven by purely commercial principles which sought to give shareholders the best possible dividend.''