Oddly, talking of McDonalds; the European Court of Human Rights has just found that the "McLibel Two" were deprived of their rights by the UK legal system, as it relates to the laws of defamation.

Click here for the Guardian story

In essence, two protesters handed out leaflets which McDonalds claimed were libellous. McDonalds issued a press release which the two protesters in turn claimed libelled them. So, they went to court, but rather obviously, a multinational corporation versus two unemployed laymen is a rather unequal contest.

Legal aid is not available in defamation cases in Britain. Supposedly this is to prevent it being too easy to launch frivolous lawsuits, but obviously it allows the rich and greedy to bully the poor and honest in the courts.