Faces of the week

Our regular look at some of the faces which have made the news this week. Above are The McLibel Two (main picture), with Alan Milburn, Bill Clinton, Lauren Bacall and David James.

The McLibel Two

Two environmental campaigners who lost a mammoth libel case brought by fast-food giant, McDonald's, must now wait for judgment after taking their case to the European Court of Human Rights.

The court's ruling is not expected for several months, but then the McLibel Two, 39-year-old Helen Steel and Dave Morris, 50, have been engaged in a legal battle against McDonald's, on and off, for 14 years.

In 1990, Helen Steel was a gardener and part-time minibus driver for community groups, while Dave Morris was an unemployed postman, when they were handed libel writs from McDonald's as a result of leaflets they had distributed.

The pamphlet, issued by London Greenpeace - which is separate from the international Greenpeace movement - didn't hedge its language.

Among other things, it accused McDonald's of encouraging litter, mistreating animals and workers and destroying rain forests.

Record-breaking trial

Three other London activists decided that, with no Legal Aid, they couldn't fight the massive corporation, once reckoned to occupy more floor space than any other organisation on the planet. They apologised.

Helen Steel decided she had no option but to take on the company and try, against the odds, to wipe the smile off Ronald McDonald's face.

Dave Morris, although busy looking after his one-year-old son, joined her struggle.

When the case finally came to court, after years spent deciding its parameters, Steel and Morris had no notion that they were embarking on what was to become the longest trial in English legal history.

McDonald's serves 47 million customers a day

Working from a small, terraced house in Tottenham, north London, with a fighting fund of £35,000 raised by supporters, but without the aid of lawyers, Morris wrestled with 18,000 court transcripts and 40,000 pages of documents and witness statements.

Required to prove every far-reaching charge in the original pamphlet, he wheeled in an army of witnesses, including scientists, researchers and former McDonald's employees, to testify on all aspects of Big Mac's impact on the globe.

After 313 days of helping Dave Morris to stay afloat in an ocean of papers and puzzling procedures, the judge, Mr Justice Bell, sitting without a jury, ruled that he and Helen Steel had libelled McDonald's.

The judge rejected claims that McDonald's was to blame for starvation in the Third World or had used lethal poisons to destroy vast areas of Central American rainforest.

He ordered Morris and Steel to pay £60,000 damages, reduced later on appeal to £40,000, which McDonald's, whose legal bill was an estimated £10m, has not sought to collect.

Challenge to libel laws

But Mr Justice Bell also decided, in what was seen as a PR disaster for the corporation, that McDonald's had "pretended to a positive nutritional benefit which their food did not match"; had exploited children in its advertising, and paid low wages, "helping to depress wages in the catering trade".

Now Steel and Morris have taken on another heavyweight, the UK government.

This time, represented in Strasbourg by a lawyer provided under European law, they argued that English libel law breached the human rights convention by denying Legal Aid for individuals pitted against a huge corporation.

The government, in turn, says it would be unfair to ask the taxpayer to foot the bill.

For Dave Morris, McDonald's golden arch is only a symbol: "It's not just McDonald's that our case is about, it's about fighting an oppressive and destructive economic system".

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Alan Milburn One of Tony Blair's key political allies, the former Health Secretary Alan Milburn, returned to the Cabinet after a mini-reshuffle. Barely 14 months after resigning to spend more time with his family, Mr Milburn becomes Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster, with special responsibility for co-ordinating Labour's next General Election campaign. The move is seen as a defeat for Chancellor Gordon Brown, who has previously taken charge of election planning himself. Full story

Bill Clinton The former US President, Bill Clinton, is recovering after undergoing major surgery to prevent a heart attack. 58-year-old Clinton had a quadruple heart bypass after checking-in to hospital with chest pains. Doctors performing the four-hour operation found that Clinton's heart disease was extensive, with blockages in some arteries well over 90%, making it likely that he would have had a substantial heart attack in the near future. Full story

Lauren Bacall Big screen goddess Lauren Bacall has shown that, even at 79, she had lost none of her straight-talking charm. In Venice with Nicole Kidman to promote their new movie she became irritated when a reporter called her Australian co-star a "legend". "She's not a legend," Bacall snapped back. "She's a beginner. What is this 'legend'? She can't be a legend at whatever age she is. She can't be a legend, you have to be older." Full story

David James After once leading the campaign to destroy Graham Taylor's career as England manager, the Sun decided it was time to give goalkeeper David James its own special treatment after his mistake which gave Austria a draw in the World Cup qualifier. It was the tabloid's pages about James, comparing him, unfavourably, with a donkey, that led to the England team refusing to speak to the media after England's win, with new goalkeeper Paul Robinson, against Poland. Full story

Compiled by BBC News Profiles Unit's Chris Jones