Conservatives Issue Propaganda Comic

Press, Volume XCVIII, Issue 28984, 27 August 1959, Page 13

Conservatives Issue Propaganda Comic

(Rec. 9 p.m.) LONDON, August 26. Britain’s ruling Conservative Party last night launched a new form of political propaganda—a 12-page magazine which to observers seemed indistinguishable in style from a children’s picture comic.

The public-tion is entirely in strip-cartoon form. It is brightly coloured and is entitled “Form.” The front page says: “What is Form? Form is the record of past achievement.” The front-page cartoon shows how the study of form on the race track and cricket ground helps in the choice of backing the winner.

Inside pages give potted biographies in strip-cartoon form of the Conservative Government leaders.

The Chancellor of the Exchequer <Mr Heathcoat-Amory) is shown parachuting over Arnhem during World War II and sailing his yacht in peace-time. Cartoons show the Foreign Secretary (Mr Selwyn Lloyd) as an Army staff officer during the

Normandy invasion and playing golf.

The chairman of the Conservative Party (Lord Hailsham > is depicted as an individualist—“ When at Oxford he started the fashion for men of wearing brightlycoloured sweaters.”

Last night a Conservative Central Office spokesman said the magazine was intended to be a popularised version of Conservative policy. He said: "It isn’t a publication we intend to do regularly, but some people complain at times that our language is too much in the air, and we use too much research office jargon.” Asked if it did not look a little too much like a children’s comic, the spokesman replied: “It is aimed at the general popular public. and it is the first one we have produced entirely in strip cartoon fashion.”