The People vs McDonald’s With Mark Steel Available Now

Mark Steel’s new BBC Radio 4 podcast is available now. Find it here or on various platforms.

In 1986, members of environmental group London Greenpeace published a leaflet called What’s Wrong with McDonald’s? It claimed McDonald’s was exploiting workers, destroying rainforests, torturing animals, and promoting food that could make people sick, even cause cancer…

McDonald’s said the claims in the leaflet were untrue, harmed its reputation and demanded an apology. Helen Steel, a gardener, and a former postman named Dave Morris, refused. Mark takes us into the murky world of McDonald’s Corporation v Steel & Morris – aka ‘McLibel’ – the longest-running trial in English history, which turned the spotlight on the way big business operates.

The case would help bring issues like rainforest destruction and advertising to children into the mainstream. It would also – spoiler alert – be the moment our current prime minister first comes to prominence. And if that isn’t enough, this story would ultimately have connections with a dark and shameful secret at the heart of the British state – something which Mark discovers he himself had been a victim of.