That is a huge margin, and if we apply it to the opinion polls now, it means that instead of Tony Blair heading for a repeat of his 160-seat majority, the election is poised on a knife edge between a hung parliament and a comfortable, but much reduced, majority. I may be the only person left in the country who is still interested in the forthcoming election - on the grounds that I think that the outcome is still in doubt. The figure was wildly disproportionate to the actual damage they had inflicted on the company, and there is no doubt that the trial put Morris and Steel through an extraordinary ordeal, even though some of the allegations - paying low wages, for example, and cruelty to some of the animals used to make burgers - were well-founded.In a hugely important judgement, the court in Strasbourg has ruled that the British government was in breach of article six of the European Convention on Human Rights, which guarantees the right to a fair trial, by refusing to give the defendants legal aid. Even at the time, the protest was not headline news, and the global success of the brand in the intervening period hardly suggests it was brought to its knees. Although McDonald's was not a party to the Strasbourg case, its behaviour in pursuing the two defendants so relentlessly through the British judicial system has been shown in a very unflattering light by the court's conclusion that they did not get a fair trial.It all began in the 1980s when McDonald's started using the threat of libel writs to scare a tiny group of activists, London Greenpeace (no relation to the better-known organisation), into apologising for handing out a home-made flyer accusing the company (among other things) of selling unhealthy food.Twenty years later, at a moment when the dangers of eating fast food are discussed on a daily basis, this does not seem a remarkable allegation. Three of the activists apologised to avoid legal action, but Steel and Morris stood their ground and the case went to court in 1994. But however disillusioned they are with Blair, yesterday's opinion poll suggests that there is a different electorate in places such as Gateshead that may not have had such illusions of Blair in the first place and for whom he still deserves one last chance.j.rentoul independent.co.ukThe writer is chief political commentator for 'The Independent on Sunday' More from John Rentoul.
It's a free country, isn't it? Whenever I hear that irritating clich?I think of our libel laws and all the anxious legal discussions I have sat through in newspaper offices. In a country where there is still no unqualified "public interest" defence, an honest mistake or the lack of forensic proof can land proprietors with a huge bill for damages and costs, but journalists get little sympathy from a public with a fairly low opinion of the media. This is true not only of politicians who might be looking to the Labour selectorate that will choose Blair's successor. It is true, for example, of the reviled Alastair Campbell, whose views on education are well known. And it turns out Peter Hyman, Blair's other loyal speechwriterwho went off to work in an Islington comprehensive, thinks his former boss should put up taxes on the better-off.The stakes in this election are high. It seems that both the outcome and the meaning of the vote are in doubt. If Blair just scrapes home with a tiny majority, that will be the end of New Labour as we know it, which is why the prospect is so enticing to Hattersleyites of varying stripes.
The substance was sensible and mostly liberal; the spin put on it by Blair on television the night before was: "The numbers are coming down."The singularity of Tony Blair is that he is more right-wing (in terms of conventional labels) than anyone else in his Government. He wants to put himself at the front of the election campaign because he is the only person who can be trusted to stick to the "unremittingly New Labour" line. That was why, at the start of this month, he stole the headlines from Alan Johnson's announcement of incapacity benefit reform.Johnson may be a popular minister who is good on television, but it was more important for Blair to get the line right than to build up a rival to Brown for the succession. So he made a speech in Manchester the day before Johnson's Commons statement.
