British Council

The British council is the British government's cultural propaganda bbody. They Council even carries a discussion of the its own history on its website which states as much:

The British Council was founded as an organ of international propaganda. During the late 1920s an influential group of civil servants became convinced that ‘British’ values of parliamentary democracy could be subsumed by the rising tide of fascism. Their response was the British Committee for Relations with Other Countries, which became the British Council. Particular Council initiatives included the teaching of English, but political messages always came along with the language tuition.^[1]

Board of Trustees 2005

• Neil Kinnock The Rt Hon Lord (Neil) Kinnock of Bedwellty Chair of the British Council
• Gerard Lemos CMG, deputy chair of the board of trustees, Lemos and Crane Consultancy training, research and publishing Generalist Member of Audit Commission
• Zeinab Badawi, member of the board of trustees, Broadcaster and journalist
• Professor Timothy O'Shea BSc Phd, member of the board of trustees, Principal and Vice-chancellor, The University of Edinburgh
• Charles Grant, member of the board of trustees, Director, Centre for European Reform
• Rick Haythornthwaite, member of the board of trustees, Chief Executive, Invensys plc
• Sir Michael Jay KCMG, member of the board of trustees, Permanent Under-Secretary of State and Head Diplomatic Service, Foreign and Commonwealth Office
• Jude Kelly OBE, member of the board of trustees, Founder and Artistic Director of Metal
• Professor Lord May of Oxford OM AC Kt PRS, member of the board of trustees, President, The Royal Society
• Rabbi Julia Neuberger DBE, member of the board of trustees, broadcaster and project consultant
• Dr Andrew Cubie CBE FRSE, Partner, Fyfe Ireland WS Solicitors

Business partners

Our client list

We would like to thank all of our business partners for their continued support and involvement. Some of our current partners include:

Accenture Air India Ltd Allied Domecq plc Anglo American plc Alsop Architects Ltd Arup AstraZeneca plc BAe Systems plc Balfour Beatty Barbican Centre Barclays Group plc BG plc Binnie Black & Veatch Ltd Bloomberg LP Bovis Lend Lease plc BP plc British Airways plc British Sky Broadcasting Group plc BT Group plc Cable & Wireless plc Cadbury Schweppes plc Cambridge University Press Cox & Kings Travel Ltd Daimler Chrysler Davis Langdon & Everest Deutsche Bank DHL International Diageo plc EMI Group Ericsson Ltd Ernst and Young Eurostar Group Foster Wheeler Group GKN plc GlaxoSmithKline plc Halcrow Group Hilton International Hotels HSBC Holdings plc Hyder Consulting IBM ICI plc J C Bamford Excavators Ltd Jaguar Ltd (Ford) KLM Royal Dutch Airlines KPMG Kvaerner Group plc Lloyds TSB London Stock Exchange MacMillan Publishing Ltd Marconi plc Marks and Spencer plc Marriot Hotels and Catering MG Rover Group Ltd Millennium & Copthorne Hotels Group Motorola Ltd Mott MacDonald Group Ltd NM Rothschild and Sons Ltd Nortel plc Northern Electric plc Oberoi Hotels Oxford University Press Pearson plc Pirelli plc PowerGen plc Pricewaterhouse Coopers Prudential plc Renault Reuters Holdings plc Rio Tinto plc Rolls-Royce plc Ronald Joyce Royal & Sun Alliance Insurance Group plc Shell Group of Companies Sheraton Hotels STA Travel Standard Chartered plc Thames Water plc The Telegraph plc TRW Automotive Systems Ltd University of Cambridge Local Examinations Syndicate Virgin Group Visa International Vodafone plc Volkswagen AG Xerox

(Source: [2])

Notes

1. ^ Propaganda?, by Nicholas J Cull]