Bell Pottinger Communications

This article is part of the Nuclear Spin project of Spinwatch.

Bell Pottinger Communications (a subsidiary of Chime Communications) is the largest PR and lobbying company in the UK.

The Chairman of Bell Pottinger is Lord Tim Bell, a friend of former UK prime minister Margaret Thatcher. Bell 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 who work or have worked 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).

Pro-Nuclear Work

Bell Pottinger have a history of nuclear clients:

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.

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

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'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 'worked on the BNFL account during a tumultuous four-year period'. It also said Bell Pottinger director Tim Walker was a 'former special adviser to Jack Cunningham' when he was a very pro-nuclear MP and spent 'more than a decade closely involved in the politics of the nuclear industry'.

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".

Refusal to join the Association of Professional Political Consultants

In February 2008, it emerged that Bell Pottinger was one of three agencies refusing to join the APPC, following a committee inquiry chaired by Labour MP Tony Wright. Despite attempting to "make amends" by drawing up its own code of conduct, the controversy surrounding Bell Pottinger's steadfast refusal to register resulted in chairman Peter Bingle giving evidence to MPs at the Public Administration Select Committee.

Personnel

• Peter Bingle – Chair
• Jonathan Oates – Director

Subsidiaries

• Bell Pottinger Corporate and Financial
• Bell Pottinger Good Relations
• Bell Pottinger North
• Bell Pottinger Public Affairs
• Bell Pottinger Sans Frontieres
• Bell Pottinger Sport and Sponsorship
• Bell Pottinger USA
• QBO Bell Pottinger
• Bell Pottinger Security
• Bell Pottinger Middle East

Clients

Some of Bell Pottinger's clients include:

• Nike
• BSkyB
• Natwest
• BNFL
• BP
• AEA Technology
• GlaxoSmithKline
• Prudential
• BAE Systems
• Rolls Royce
• MBDA

Contact, References and Resources

Contact

Website: www.bell-pottinger.co.uk