One in eight U.S. citizens has at some point worked beneath the Golden Arches.Doug Mill/Pool via Getty Images

Votes with that? How the politics of McDonald’s went global – POLITICO

by · POLITICO

LONDON — Fifty years ago this month, the first McDonald’s opened in the U.K, becoming the 3,000th franchise of the fast food giant worldwide.

Staff at the restaurant in the working class suburb of Woolwich, south east London, were paid 65 pence an hour and got free food. A milkshake, burger and “French fries” (so much more exotic than British “chips”) cost diners 48p. Life would never be the same.

Attending the grand opening was the the gloriously named Mayor Len Squirrel, the first British politician to embrace the Big Mac, but by no means the last.