Bell Pottinger Public Affairs

Bell Pottinger Public Affairs (BPPA) is one of the largest public relations companies in the United Kingdom.

"BPPA is one of fourteen companies operating within the public relations division of Chime Communications plc," it states on its website. Their income in 1999 was £34,390,000 (political lobbying accounted for £3,440,000 of this). They gave the Labour Party more than £5,000 in sponsorship in 1999-2000.

The Chairman of Bell Pottinger is Lord Tim Bell, a friend of Thatcher's who ran the Tory Party's publicity campaigns for the 1979, 1983 and 1987 elections. He was the Deputy Chairman of Lowe Howard-Spink and Bell alongside Frank Lowe before founding Chime Communications in 1989. He got his peerage from Tony Blair in 1998.

Other ex-Labour Party staff at Bell Pottinger include Cathy McGlynn (an adviser to Jack Cunningham when he was Agriculture Secretary), Amanda Clow (from Tony Blair's office before the 1997 election), Amanda Francis (a former adviser to Mo Mowlam), Jav Chavda (a former researcher for the 'Rapid Rebuttal Unit') and Nick Williams (a researcher for David Clark).

History
In March 2004 BPPA won a $5.8m (£3.2m) four-month contract from the U.S. supported administration in Iraq to promote the establishment of democracy ahead of the handover of power to the interim Iraqi authority on 30 June. According to PR Week, the contract also includes promoting the election of an Iraqi government. "B-PC will work with its Dubai operation Bates PanGulf, and Baghdad-based media services company Balloch & Roe. A small team will be sent to work with Balloch & Roe's Arabic writers who will advise on how best to cross the cultural divide," PR Week reported. The project team, PR Week reported was headed by Mark Turnbull and the head of BPPA's Dubai office Tom Mollo. The Independent (UK) reported that company founder Tim Bell described his role as "masterminding the campaign in London".

Pro-Nuclear Work
Bell Pottinger have a history of nuclear clients:

BNFL
In the late nineties and up until 2002, Bell Pottinger Public Affairs was the main PR company providing strategic corporate communications advice for BNFL. In 2002, Bell Pottinger lost the account, although it still provides financial PR services and ad hoc project services, through the sister company Bell Pottinger Communications.

Nirex
In 2004/05 Bell Pottinger received £24,000 from Nirex to "Provide commmunications advice related to the Nirex pension scheme."

Nuclear Decomissioning Agency
In November / December 2005, Private Eye revealed that Bell Pottinger was receiving £8,000 a month to give strategic advice to the Nuclear Decommissioning Authority. The Eye noted: " Why is the Bell Pottinger PR firm passing on potted biographies of MPs focusing on their supposed attitude to nuclear power to the Nuclear Decommissioning Agency (NDA)? The NDA&#39;s job, after all, is to clean up the mess left by the old atomic generation, not to promote new nuclear power stations."

The Eye noted: "The files certainly give the impression that Bell Pottinger thinks the NDA is part of the cosy nuclear club rather than a body charged with sorting out some of the worst problems created by the industry. In its bidding document Bell Pottinger emphasised that its chairman Kevin Murray &#39;worked on the BNFL account during a tumultuous four-year period&#39;. It also said Bell Pottinger director Tim Walker was a &#39;former special adviser to Jack Cunningham&#39; when he was a very pro-nuclear MP and spent &#39;more than a decade closely involved in the politics of the nuclear industry&#39;.

Using the Freedom of Information Act, NuclearSpin has obtained a copy of Bell Pottinger's pitch to the NDA. It underlines the extent of the companies involvement with the nuclear industry. It states that Bell Pottinger's consultants "have worked in a variety of capacities with the nuclear industry. These include:


 * Providing strategic advice and support for the Chairman and Chief Executive of BNFL including crisis management
 * Advising BNFL on corporate and financial communications
 * Developing day-to-day public affairs programmes for BNFL and the BNIF
 * Working with Parliamentarians with interests in the nuclear industry
 * Monitoring and tracking nuclear issues ranging from Parliamentary committees to public enquiries
 * Directly managing the in-house communications for the UKAEA and AEA Technology through privatisation
 * Briefing and rehearsing industry executives appearing before Select Committees."

The NDA's briefing paper for potential PR consultants boasts that the "NDA is not unique in being an organisation committed to open and transparent engagement with stakeholders, but it may well be the first organisation that has such objectives built in to its statutory requirements". Nevertheless, Bell Pottinger's successful pitch includes:


 * "Advising on the handling of particular announcements identifying the issues and bear traps in advance, advising on messaging, media strategy and tactics, questions and answers"
 * "Advising on an appropriate contact programme ie who are the journalists that should be courted, what are their issues, how best to handle them"
 * "Providing off the record information".

In August 2006, the NDA put its entire PR business up for grabs, although it was announced in January 2007 that Bell Pottinger had retained the account. According to PR Week, as well as strategic advice and Public Affairs, the agency’s new remit covers regeneration activity in communities affected by the closure of nuclear power stations.

The £150,000 contract, will be led by Chairman Kevin Murray who reports to NDA head of communications Bill Hamilton and London-based director of communications Jon Phillips. It lasts 12 months with the chance to renew for a further two years.

EU petition manipulation
As an effort to greater transparency and public input, the EU commission introduced a series of petitions as a means to obtain public input. These petitions became the target of two PR companies (Bell Pottinger and Fleishman-Hillard) who offered to manipulate the results to affect EU legislation.

Wikipedia manipulation
One of Bell Pottinger's services/operations include manipulating Wikipedia entries and blog entries to (1) alter the perception of their clients or (2) smear/harm critics of their clients.

Clients
Clients include:

Corporations

 * BAE Systems
 * DP World
 * McDonalds
 * Imperial Tobacco
 * law firmCarter Ruck
 * Moletest
 * Standard Life
 * Metrix Consortium
 * Paramount Group
 * Sinar Mas

Governments/states or government agencies

 * Treasury Holdings, to "manage all community relations and engagement with local stakeholders for the redevelopment of Battersea Power Station" in London, UK
 * Nuclear Decommissioning Authority (NDA)
 * Central Bank of Sri Lanka
 * Various Yemeni Government Organizations
 * Sri Lanka Government
 * Belarus (reputation management to have sanctions lifted)
 * Government of Russia
 * Government of Turkey
 * Government of Democratic Republic of Congo

Individuals

 * Boris Berezovsky
 * Victor Dahdaleh
 * Rupiah Banda
 * Former Thai prime minister Thaksin Shinawatra
 * Paramount Group and its head, Ivor Ichikowitz

Former Staff

 * Fiona Mason, director Mason joined FD-LLM in 2006.

Contact information

 * Bell Pottinger Public Affairs
 * 6th Floor, Holborn Gate
 * 330 High Holborn
 * London WC1V 7QC
 * Phone 020 7861 2400
 * Website: www.bppa.co.uk

External Resources

 * Melanie Newman and Oliver Wright, Caught on camera: top lobbyists boasting how they influence the PM, The Independent, 5 December 2011.
 * PR Uncovered: Bell Pottinger’s ‘extensive connections’ in Parliament

Related SourceWatch Articles

 * Christopher Satterthwaite
 * Lawrence Bloom