I’ve never spent a penny of my money in McDonald’s – Labour is right to take a principled stand

The fast food chain may offer apprenticeships, but it promotes zero hours contracts too – you work on their terms, or not at all

Janet Street-Porter: 'I am proud to say I have never eaten a McDonald’s' (Getty Images)

Attending Party conferences is rather like going to the BBC Good Food Show Live or the Ideal Home Exhibition, only without the free samples. As a surly tot, one of my most cherished souvenirs from the latter was a tiny Hovis loaf and a mini bottle of HP Sauce, which mum treated as if they were priceless jewels, reluctantly handing them over after a full day trudging past demonstrations of kitchen gadgets we could never afford. Now the public queue for hours to see celebrity chefs Paul Hollywood and Mary Berry in the flesh. Our new heroes don’t stand on soap boxes, they skilfully knead dough and mix cakes while we watch and listen, enraptured.

Political conferences, by contrast, should have been abandoned decades ago. They do nothing to extend party membership and everything to remind us how threadbare modern oratory has become.

A throng of self-important folk wearing large plastic labels, obsessed by points of order and rules, spend hours listening to dreary debates which have zero impact in the outside world. But come cocktail hour, everything changes. Serious drinking begins, culminating in all sorts of outrageous behaviour – and all in the name of changing the world for the better. Meanwhile, most political parties can only muster a fraction of the membership they enjoyed a decade ago.

Outside the main auditorium, with its arcane rituals, there’s a motley collection of stands whose owners have paid handsomely for the privilege of flogging everything from tweed jackets and waterproof coats (at the Conservative conference) to mugs and t-shirts (to assembling Greens).

The Labour party is in turmoil over the party executive’s decision to ban the fast food giant McDonald’s from sponsoring a stand at its annual conference in Liverpool this September. McDonald's offered to pay £30,000 and promised a display including “an interactive experience” to promote British farming.

Some members of the NEC accuse the party of London-centric snobbery, pointing out that McDonald’s employs 40,000 people and offers apprenticeships. The Baker’s Union (with just 20,000 members) supports the ban, pointing out that McDonald's refuses to recognise trade union membership and is under investigation by the EU for its tax arrangements, centred on allegedly unlawful “sweetheart deals” with Luxembourg, which the company has denied. McDonald’s basing its European tax affairs in this tiny principality – hardly the place where the majority of its European business is conducted – is highly controversial.

Labour MP John Mann claims the ban is “an ineffective gesture” and a chance to engage with McDonald’s management has been lost. Some pundits claim that the Baker’s Union leans hard to the left, but surely the Bakers are just doing what unions should do: protecting their members.

Is McBan just a big fuss about nothing, when there’s immigration, the NHS and child porn still to worry about? Are Labour’s bosses making a principled stand, or a pointless gesture which gets headlines but which doesn’t achieve very much?

McDonald’s offers apprenticeships, but promotes zero hours contracts – you work for them on their terms, or not at all. On the other hand, many delegates at the conference will be staying in hotels, drinking in pubs and wine bars and eating in restaurants who also do not recognise trade unions. So what kind of ‘stand’ will they be taking when it comes to the basic needs of their staff?

Unlike a lot of so-called ‘slacktivists’ – people who tick boxes online saying they ‘like’ a good cause but who never give any money (new research indicates that only one in 10 people who took part in the ‘ice bucket challenge’ actually gave any money to charity and only 10 per cent of charitable donations in the UK are raised online, in spite of all the pledges) – I am proud to say I have never eaten at McDonald’s, and not a penny of my money will ever go into its tills.

I plan to enter my coffin Big Mac-free, my body unsullied by its products, my brain uncontaminated by its credo. My stand is not based on snobbery, but on the company’s stultifying need to dominate every aspect of our lives with its bland fare while pretending it’s something special. From sporting events to concerts, McDonald's seeks to imply it is an essential part of everyday life. I also apply the same ban to Coca-Cola and all their products.

I applaud Labour. Finally, they stand for something. I hope they don’t lose their nerve.