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Matthew Hilton
urged “civilised” moderate smokers to continue their enjoyable habit. 51 He was
ready to support alternative theories of the causes of lung cancer and was later
quick to point out how one of the ten members of the US Surgeon-General’s panel
in 1964 intended to continue smoking. In 1965, he condemned the great “blow
to freedom” and “outrageous interference” that was the TV advertising ban,
instigated by the “usual muddle-headed” “socialists” in the Labour Party with all
their “huffing and puffing.” 52 Even in 1971, when all other British newspapers and
radio programs had come largely to accept the findings of the Royal College in its
second report, Chapman Pincher insisted on insinuating that the whole thing was
a conspiracy to legitimize increased taxes. 53
Pincher and others maintained a faith in the freedom of the rational individual
operating independently within the marketplace, a socioeconomic ideology tied
closely to the by now traditional culture of smoking. It was an attitude that came
to influence many of the early anti-smoking health campaigns, beyond the more
practical fiscal considerations which have also been shown to have curtailed
government activity. 54 Until 1957, the Conservative government believed that the
statement made in the House of Commons in 1954 was sufficient to enable
smokers to assess the evidence for themselves. When it became obvious that
further action was necessary following the MRC report in 1957, the government
stuck to the policy of letting people “make up their own minds on the subject.” 55
The posters initially produced by the government to be made available to local
authorities to distribute at their own discretion reflected this policy of a broader
liberal attitude to public health. The early posters featured no persuasive rhetoric
and were entirely devoid of any visual imagery. 56 Propaganda directed at children
did verbally and visually elaborate on the issues, though health workers early
recognised their class specificity. 57
Throughout the 1960s, government campaigns were limited both by finance and
by ideology. Extensive campaigns might be focused on one particular town, when
the sheer weight of publicity materials (in the form of advertisements in the local
press and radio, loudspeakers, sandwich-boards, banners, lectures, meetings, film
shows, and publicity caravans located in town centers) helped get the message
across. 58 But the most prominent campaign of the 1960s consisted of two mobile
anti-smoking vans, staffed by two male university graduates, which toured Britain
giving talks and distributing rather factual material. 59 All of these efforts were
minimal compared with what health campaigners now argue to be necessary to
change public attitudes in the long term. Yet the limited efforts were in line with
the liberal notions of the individual, which discouraged governments from getting
too closely involved in personal consumption decisions. When alternative forms
of health promotion were made available, in the anti-smoking clinics pioneered
by the National Society of Non-Smokers and local medical officers of health, and
which were shown to have a higher success rate in terms of the proportion of
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