Advertising
banger: censors at work
Paul Johnson porrns of censorship abound in this coun- try. We saw one in action recently at the —oily Mail, when a closed shop printing Tent_lon censored the paper's leading article. ius form of dictation is still legal and un- punished even under the new Tebbit Employment Act, now in force. So much for the success of the Thatcher government, after three and a half years, in curbing the Power of the unions! But then the govern- _Tet itself practises hypocritical and in- Tnsible forms of censorship. Consider, r Instance, the latest moves in the game of obaceo Humbug. smPrettY nearly everyone now agrees that f,;(31(ing is bad for you. But what to do? "e headmaster of a famous public school sr,recently confessed to me that he was ab- i,7,!telY baffled by the problem of smoking t" )his school. At least he was honest. The friejuhle with government is that it is not bonest. It has officially declared smoking to e harmful. But it will not accept the conse- quen 6:.ees of this verdict. It has declined to eir7sIfY tobacco as a dangerous drug, know- tti"g that it could not enforce the law. Much Iv,(3,re culpably, it refuses to use the taxation wh7130n. The number of cigarettes smoked, le.h the evidence shows is a vital factor in the Incidence of lung cancer, could un- g°tIbtedlY be reduced by punitive taxation. ri,,, the government does not want to take earnings with its revenue: it prefers the immoral harlItugs on which it lives to be stable and ffed.ictable. What is even more reprehensi- (Tie is that the authorities refuse to take Litilrec.t action on smoking in public places. u,, fled bans of this kind would cause no undue hardship to anyone, would cut the C°kItt8 total and, for that reason, would ev- welcomed by most smokers, as well as theryo..._ lie else. It is monstrous, for instance, cir",` London Underground still runs hu.n- dise:s of smoking carriages littered with ex-lib:listing butts and thick with the stench of slic,„-4tiuns; or that smoking is permitted in in -Ps and offices and even cinemas, which °ther respects are strictly controlled by meet may
ionnt to Stamp
may be beyond the power of govern- out smoking. But it can go a or 8 aY towards reducing it to an outdoor aetiee, or oi one confined indoors to the
smoker's own home, or the smoking room of a pub. After all, this would merely restore the position to what it was in the early 19th century, before promiscuous smoking was tolerated.
But the government does none of these things. Instead it resorts to censorship of an underhand kind. It goes for the absolutely safe target of the advertising industry. The adman is presented as the villain of the piece. It is a curious fact that almost everyone in public life, including most Tory MPs, views advertising with suspicion. There is a very common belief that advertis- ing makes people consume things they do not want to consume, and would not dream of buying were it not for the ads. There is absolutely no scientific basis for this belief, but it is a central part of left-wing con- spiracy theory and is surprisingly widely held on the Right also. Smoking fits neatly 'Thanks to Sir Geoffrey, I can now afford to give you a little more money.'
into this delusion and therefore, when the government feels it must take action to reduce smoking — or at any rate appear to be taking action — it simply has another bout of advertising-bashing.
The latest agreement between the govern- ment and the Tobacco Advisory Council is a combination of extortion and censorship. The tobacco industry has agreed to con- tribute another £11 million to 'health research', and at the same time further restrictions, both negative and positive, have been imposed on advertising. The government health warnings on newspaper adverts and posters — which I believe are, if anything, a positive incitement to children to take up the drug — are now to occupy 15 (instead of 9) per cent of the space. The warnings must also now be included in displays at point-of-sale. Cigarette ads are to be banned completely from video casset- tes. Perhaps the most important and signifi- cant change is the agreement that, by March 1986, expenditure on cinema and poster advertising will be reduced to 50-60 per cent of the present levels. This is clearly a major step towards a total ban on cigarette advertising. And once cigarette ads are out, it is not hard to see the anti- advertising lobby moving on to other targets, such as alcohol. We have to face the fact that powerful and active forces are using the prejudice against advertising to at- tack the principle of choice which under- pins our free enterprise market society. It is astonishing that a right-wing Tory govern- ment (or rather one, I fear, which merely pretends to be such) should lend itself to this furtive campaign. The most likely ef- fect of the new regulations, which will not reduce the total of cigarettes smoked, will be to slow down the transfer to low-tar brands, and so keep the cancer rate high.
Meanwhile the British TV duopoly is continuing to indulge in its own brand of censorship by using the copyright laws to prevent anyone except its own duopoly publications, Radio Times and TV Times, telling people what the programmes are. Next year a court case will be held against an independent publication, TV Choice, alleging breach of BBC copyright, and I make no comment on its merits. Other papers are moving into the danger zone. Time Out has begun to list the peak-time programmes on all channels. The Sunday Times'colour mag now has a new section on TV and related topics which includes programme listings. It has always seemed to me invidious that, because of the duopo- ly system, TV addicts should have to buy not just one but two magazines to find out what to glue themselves to. Why should they have to pay anything? If, as the duopolists claim, they are operating a `Public Service', why should the public have to fork out to discover in what way it is being served? Ought this not to be covered by the compulsory licence fee? How can the nature of a public service be a matter for private copyright? And if it is, what does the Office of Fair Trading have to say about it?
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