As said before, I cannot help women with breastfeeding on this site until the Milupa campaign ends, but there is so much misunderstanding around about the law, I do want to clarify.
The 'UK Law' applies to the advertising of breastmilk substitutes (not the same as 'the Code', which comes from the World Health Organisation, is intended for global adoption, and which has no force of law in the UK) and like the Code, is also intended to protect the health of formula fed babies, as well as removing methods of undermining breastfeeding.
Breastfeeding is a social, emotional and pyschological issue as well as a nutritional one. In all countries of the world where women are able to buy formula, breastfeeding can actually be quite fragile. Without government-level policies that make it possible for women to choose to breastfeed for as long as they wish (eg employment law, laws protecting their right not to be asked to remove themselves from a public place, proper training for healthcare professionals), breastfeeding is easily undermined.
This has a potentially powerful impact on overall infant and maternal health - not necessarily on an individual baby or mother, but at a population level - and it costs money. However, at the individual level, mothers may need a lot of help and support to continue breastfeeding after they have started it, and it is simply unfair and unkind to them as individuals for this to be so patchy.
Of course health professionals can talk about formula. What they should not do is stage group demos on how to prepare a bottle - not that this is illegal, but it is against the UNICEF Baby Friendly policy (linked with the WHO code). Why? Because this is not a safe way to teach people how to do it correctly. Individual parents need one to one teaching, preferably in their own kitchen. Research has shown this is safer than a group demo - it's actually common sense if you think about it.
The decision to use formula should be informed, not by which formula gives you double points, not by the one with the cutest pic on the pack, not by whichever brand your mum used (the formulation may well have changed a zillion times since then), but by which brand gives you the best nutrition for your particular baby. This is why allowing formula manufacturers 'loose' on mothers falls short - how are they going to advise you, when the bottom line is 'what sells?' and not 'what is the right health choice for Baby X?'
The long-term safety of giving artificially-sourced LCPs or prebiotics or whatever to babies has not been demonstrated, because no one is following the babies who have been given these newer ingredients. There is no evidence they are not safe, of course, for the same reason. But just yelling 'new improved' at mothers and 'closest to breastmilk' is not good enough, in my view.
I agree with Mandy, that here is a case for open, honest, government-backed development of infant formula, where all the ingredients can be published and discussed by knowledgable people, so they are not a commercial secret.
Yes, there are some mothers, like Charleypops, who are vulnerable and understandably sensitive to the idea formula is not as good as breastmilk. They need support, too, but not at the expense of undermining the breastfeeding of other mothers.