FOR the tobacco industry, it was the day on which even a Hamlet could not bring happiness. Yesterday was the last day of cigarette advertising in Britain after six years of lobbying and court action.

While Alan Milburn, the Health Secretary, celebrated by tearing down a billboard advert to reveal an anti-smoking message, cigarette companies responded by driving around London with a fat lady singing.

Gangs of workmen were sent out last night to tear down hundreds of tobacco posters around the country in time for the Government’s midnight deadline.

Faced with such a comprehensive ban covering all advertising including sponsorship, product placement and direct marketing, tobacco companies are expected to put their efforts into promoting brands at the point of sale.

They have insisted that they will not cut their prices, as they did after a similar ban in Australia, because Britain’s high taxes would mean that it would make very little difference to overall price.

Britain is the latest in a long list of countries, including France, Ireland and Norway, to ban all tobacco advertising, which was last year worth £30 million to the advertising industry. It is estimated that about 1.6 million people in Britain saw tobacco advertising on billboards on any given day last year.

The Tobacco Advertising and Promotions Act 2002 became law in November last year and includes a ban on in-pack promotion schemes and direct marketing from May 14, as well as restricting internet advertising and sponsorship of sporting or other events by cigarette companies.

The Government hopes that the move will help meet its target of reducing smoking in Britain from 28 per cent of the population to 24 per cent by 2010.

The tobacco industry has, however, predicted that it will have no overall effect on smoking but simply deter people from switching brands.

Mr Milburn said that he hoped up to 3,000 lives could be saved each year because of the ban, which was “a policy we have fought for over the last five years”, he said.

“First, in the European Union, then in the European courts and in the British courts. At all stages this measure has been resisted by the tobacco industry.

“Tobacco advertising and sponsorship have acted as a recruiting sergeant for children and young teenagers to start the tobacco habit. Adverts have sought to get more people to smoke by conveying the idea that smoking is glamorous when in fact it is dangerous.”

The British Medical Association welcomed the ban, which Vivienne Nathanson, head of its science and ethics committee, said it had been urging for 40 years. “The next step must be a complete ban on smoking in public places because passive smoking kills at least 1,000 non-smokers every year,” she said. “The statistics speak for themselves: 120,000 people die each year from smoking. Half of all the people who smoke will die from tobacco-related causes.”

Sir Paul Nurse, Chief Executive of Cancer Research UK, added: “At present 450 British children start smoking every day. We expect to see this figure drop as a result of this life-saving legislation.”

Tim Lord of the Tobacco Manufacturers’ Association said: “It is not advertising which persuades children to smoke, it is those around them. What this ban will do is simply stop people from switching brands and make it very difficult for new brands to enter the market.”

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