Day 177 - 26 Oct 95 - Page 59


     
     1
     2   MR. RAMPTON:  -- for the reasons that I have given.  I will put
     3        it this way, if I may:  We do not believe that the ordinary
     4        reasonable reader of this leaflet, the man of average
     5        intelligence and knowledge, would actually sit down and try
     6        and work out the pathways by which the food might cause
     7        ill-health.  We would, as it were, take the message and
     8        swallow it whole.
     9
    10   MR. JUSTICE BELL:  The fundamental reason for the basis of your
    11        argument for the suggested modifications, if one is to come
    12        anywhere near it at all of what I said on 25th September,
    13        is whether the ordinary reader would notice the distinction
    14        made between diet on the one hand and food on the other, is
    15        it not?
    16
    17   MR. RAMPTON:  My Lord, absolutely.  I say that it plainly would
    18        not, and I do not even believe it is really argued in the
    19        context of this leaflet, the headlines and the cartoon in
    20        particular, and having regard to the fact of the present
    21        tense and the words in the middle -- I have said this
    22        before and I was going to try not to repeat what I said
    23        before -- this bit which looks almost like a deliberate
    24        confusion, a deliberate elision of diet with food in the
    25        second paragraph: "What they don't make clear is that a
    26        diet high in fat, sugar and all products and salt and low
    27        in fibre, vitamins and minerals which describes", in the
    28        present tense, "an average McDonald's meal".
    29
    30        If ever there was an attempt, and again I look at it
    31        objectively, if ever there was an attempt in words to
    32        elide, eradicate or extinguish what is, we all know in
    33        truth, a perfectly valid distinction between -- an
    34        important distinction between -- food and diet, that is
    35        it.  As I say, it is because of that kind of language, this
    36        kind of language in this particular case in particular,
    37        that the reader, the ordinary reasonable reader who might
    38        read this once, possibly twice -- but I doubt it -- comes
    39        away with a complete message:  "This food is dangerous".
    40
    41   MR. JUSTICE BELL:  Yes.
    42
    43   MR. RAMPTON:  My Lord, that is all I have to say.
    44
    45   MR. JUSTICE BELL:  Thank you very much.
    46
    47        What do you want to do?  We are certainly going to have a
    48        break now.
    49
    50   MS. STEEL:   To be honest, I have so much of what has been said 
    51        this afternoon that I have not got down that I do feel is 
    52        important things to note, things that I do want to respond 
    53        to, and I do not know how long that is going to take.  I do
    54        not know whether the Plaintiffs have considered this matter
    55        about providing the transcripts for today or not.  But, if
    56        not, there is certainly a considerable amount that I am
    57        going to have to write down before I can leave here.
    58
    59   MR. JUSTICE BELL:  Mr. Rampton, what it occurs to me could be
    60        done in a matter of a few minutes is to print off the

Prev Next Index