He was quite right, of course. Yet some people wouldn’t agree with him. They think junk food is much more important than that. They think that it represents the decline of national identity, that it is an assault on the nation’s health, that it threatens the existence of the planet.

The supporters of these beliefs were out in force a few days ago when McDonald’s announced the first loss in its 47-year history. Its critics were exultant. Jenny McCartney told readers of The Sunday Telegraph that they were in the middle of a titanic struggle between good and evil food.

The writer Philip Hensher wrote that McDonald’s appears “malign”, that no one could possibly like its food and that people went there only so that they could feel American. And in an editorial that was at once both ridiculous and disgraceful, The Independent asserted that “there can be few Europeans who did not stifle a cheer for the French protester Jose Bové when he rode to prison on a tractor after his conviction for trashing a branch of McDonald’s”.

Every day millions of people eat food from McDonald’s, more than have ever read a copy of The Independent; more even than have been invited to edit it.

A dozen of the diners, at most, have heard of Jose Bové. Like me, millions just enjoy a quick, very pleasant, uncomplicated meal and like the fact that the restaurants are clean and utterly reliable.

Far from McDonald’s being some evil giant, I think its opponents are much more dangerous. All McDonald’s sells is burgers, fries and milkshakes. What do its opponents sell?

To start with, they sell the idea that we are all witless victims. If you eat too many meals at McDonald’s you become fat. In fact, if you eat too many meals, you become fat. The responsibility for this is entirely your own. I am overweight and I don’t blame anybody else. I have read of diets which tell me that I can eat all the protein I want, and diets that tell me I can eat all the fat I want, and I have been trying the two in combination. So sue me. But I’m not about to sue anybody else. McDonald’s is now being dragged through the courts by some obese children whose lawyers claim that it is liable for their condition. They are being encouraged in this absurd action by people who talk about McDonald’s “force-feeding” people burgers. They complain that the meals are fattening. Er, yes. Since the failure of the McBrocolli Happy Meal, you shouldn’t consume McDonald’s food at every meal if you want a fully balanced diet. If you do, it’s your lookout. We, the consumers, are in charge.

McDonald’s has no power over us at all. If it doesn’t please us, it is McToast. It follows that it has no responsibility for what we choose to eat.

McDonald’s opponents also sell a pernicious form of anti-Americanism.

McDonald’s restaurants didn’t drive out Ye Olde British Fayre. They challenged horrible second-rate Wimpy bars and dirty “caffs” which were closed half the time. If McDonald’s were British, everyone would laud them.

Indeed, if they originated almost anywhere else the opponents would laud them. I don’t spot these people heading down the North Circular to Neasden in balaclava hats chanting “Down with Swedish welfare state imperialism” and smashing in the windows of Ikea with a brown corduroy armchair.

They hate McDonald’s because it’s American. I, on the other hand, think that is a reason to like it, along with the American people, their fantastic contribution to pop culture and the fact that they have spent their money and sent their children to die to prevent this country being ruled by foreign dictators.

Extremist environmentalism is for sale, too. It is quite right to challenge McDonald’s continually to improve its environmental and animal welfare record. It is not right at all to libel the company with suggestions that it is destroying the rainforest and taking food from the starving. Despite these allegations being shown in court to be untrue, opponents of McDonald’s continue to disseminate them.

Worst of all, however, is the way in which these people sell the idea that everything, even the most banal act, is political. They talk of “consumerism”, but there is no such thing. There is just consumption. I am not eating my burger for anybody, or against anybody or at anybody. Most of the time I don’t even eat it with anybody. I just eat it, that’s all. It’s not a symbol of anything.

For heaven’s sake, it’s only a bloody hamburger.

SOMETIMES you have to acknowledge defeat. When I worked at Conservative Central Office I helped to run an internal campaign to persuade colleagues to keep their attacks on Labour in proportion. This was mildly hypocritical of me, but never mind.

This week I was sent the following statement from a Tory-controlled council: “The people of London intheir time have survived the Black Death, the Great Fire and the Blitz, but these are nothing compared with the consequences of John Prescott’s ill-judged Revenue Support Grant.”