Day 186 - 10 Nov 95 - Page 54


     
     1        representing our case accurately if he thinks that is what
     2        we said.
     3
     4   MR. RAMPTON:  That is a -----
     5
     6   MR. MORRIS:  When I held up those posters the second one said,
     7        "Eating junk food causes" -----
     8
     9   MR. JUSTICE BELL:  I have to say that there is quite enough to
    10        consider sticking to what is in this leaflet without
    11        troubling about what may be in other publications.
    12
    13   MR. RAMPTON:  What this leaflet may say about junk food
    14        generally or capitalism generally is, I have to say,
    15        completely beside the point.  If one looks at the leaflet
    16        as a whole, starting with the cover and reading the
    17        headlines and so on, this leaflet is principally about
    18        McDonald's.  Anything that it says about capitalism or fast
    19        food companies generally applies with particular force to
    20        McDonald's.  That argument is completely beside the point.
    21
    22        My Lord, in relation to context and the strength of the
    23        message, the gravity of risk conveyed by the nutrition
    24        passage, I would like to draw particular attention to the
    25        last paragraph of the introduction on the first inside
    26        page.  This is entirely specific to McDonald's:  "The more
    27        you find out about McDonald's processed food, the less
    28        attractive it becomes as this leaflet will show.  The truth
    29        about hamburgers is enough to put you off them for life".
    30
    31        My Lord, in other words, as I said before, do not touch
    32        them with a barge pole.  The person who is considering
    33        whether to start smoking or to give it up, when he reads
    34        the government message, does not say to himself, "Well,
    35        I wonder whether it would be safe to have a few or a packet
    36        or two or to smoke for a year".  What he says to himself
    37        is, "This practice is dangerous, and for that reason I will
    38        not buy cigarettes", or, "I will stop buying them".  My
    39        Lord, that is the message which, amongst other things in
    40        the leaflet, that paragraph conveys.  There is nothing in
    41        the text of the leaflet or in the headings or in the
    42        cartoon to detract from that powerful health warning, if
    43        I may call it that.
    44
    45        Only one other thing, and I will be much faster than
    46        I thought because I have not had to deal with the question
    47        of deception, and that is this:  There was, at some stage
    48        in this afternoon's argument -- I cannot remember by which
    49        of the Defendants it was advanced -- a submission that the
    50        leaflet does not make -- and this is in relation to meaning 
    51        H particularly, though, of course, it will come in again 
    52        throughout the argument later on in the case -- the leaflet 
    53        does not make a suggestion that McDonald's and what they
    54        do, or, as the Defendants would say, misdo, are not
    55        motivated by profit; merely that the effect of what they
    56        do, their malpractices (as the defendants would have it) is
    57        that they make money out of it.
    58
    59   MS. STEEL:   That was just about one specific point, not about
    60         -- it was not about the leaflet in general.

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