Day 177 - 26 Oct 95 - Page 59
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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.
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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?
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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".
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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".
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41 MR. JUSTICE BELL: Yes.
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43 MR. RAMPTON: My Lord, that is all I have to say.
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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.
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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
