Britain is gaining a reputation as an international centre of image laundering, with the lack of regulation meaning that PR companies can represent the most repressive regimes without public scrutiny.
In the US lobbyists working for foreign governments have to
publicly disclose their client contracts and state when and why
they've been in contact with politicians and the media. In the UK,
there's no such obligation, and lobbying firms have vociferously
opposed government plans to change this.
Four years ago, the US investigative journalist Ken Silverstein
approached Washington lobbyists posing as an agent for the
authoritarian government of Turkmenistan. He exposed how the firms
vied for the right to remake the dictatorship's image, promising
access to members of Congress and positive media coverage.
The Bureau felt a similar operation in the UK would be equally
revealing, and would demonstrate the need for a statutory register.
To this end reporters from the Bureau posed as clients from a
country bordering Turkmenistan and just as unsavoury:
Uzbekistan.
The Bureau set up a fictional organisation: the "Azimov Group",
described as a team of British and eastern European investors, with
close links to the Uzbekistan government, concerned with exporting
cotton textiles. It set up a website, which listed a London office
address, mobile number and email address.
Uzbekistan's cotton industry is plagued with allegations of
using forced labour, including child labour, during harvest, and is
the subject of an international boycott over these allegations.
Bell Pottinger is one of the largest multinational PR firms in
London, and has represented clients such as Belarus, Sri Lanka and
Bahrain.
Two Bureau journalists wrote to the firm posing as members of
the Azimov Group. They claimed to have been appointed to promote
good relations between the government of Uzbekistan and the UK. The
letter stated that the country was committed to reform.
Bell Pottinger's chief executive, Paul Bell, replied that the
firm "would be delighted to talk to you about how we might best
support your enterprise".
During two meetings that were secretly recorded in June and July
2011, Bureau journalists talked with Tim Collins, chairman of Bell
Pottinger Public Affairs, David Wilson, chairman of Bell Pottinger
Public Relations, and Sir David Richmond, who works for the firm's
"strategic communications and geopolitical specialist" arm, Bell
Pottinger Sans Frontières. See The Transcript for edited extracts of the
conversations which took place.
Tim Collins
As Bell Pottinger's own website puts it: "Tim Collins has been
at the heart of the worlds of Westminster, Whitehall and the media
since the mid-1980s." He was a speechwriter for Margaret Thatcher,
press secretary for John Major and a Conservative MP for eight
years, including five spent in the Shadow Cabinet under three
Conservative leaders. He knows all the main players in "project
Cameron", having first worked with the Prime Minister at the
Conservative Research Department in 1988.
Sir David Richmond
A key player in Bell Pottinger's international division, Sir
David, a former Foreign Office intelligence and security chief,
helps clients who deal with the UN and EU and specialises in the
Middle East. With reporters posing as representatives of repressive
Uzbekistan, he said that improvements needed to be made before the
reputation-burnishing began. He added: "It doesn't matter so much
the slowness of the process, though it shouldn't be glacial."
David Wilson
As chairman of Bell Pottinger Public Relations, David Wilson is
the frontman for the company's high-profile clients, most recently
Rebekah Brooks when she left News International. Before joining the
company he was head of communications for Pfizer UK, one of the
world's biggest pharmaceutical companies, and before that head of
news at British Airways. He has written about the importance of
"trust" as the "hidden asset on a balance sheet" and urges
companies to make it central to their strategy. "Expectations of
good corporate behaviour have been ramped up as empowered consumers
and communities have changed the very nature of leadership," he
said last month.
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Caught on camera: top lobbyists boasting how they influence the
PM
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The Sting: the fake 'Azimov Group' meets Bell Pottinger
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The Transcript: 'David Cameron raised it with the Chinese Prime
Minister'
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We wrote Sri Lankan President's civil war speech, say lobbyists
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Vicious dictatorship which Bell Pottinger was prepared to do
business with
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Oliver Wright: Vested interests are entitled to argue their case,
but it must be in the open
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Andrew Grice: Plenty of talk about cracking down on lobbying – but
still there's no action
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Leading article: Evidence of a lobbying industry out of control
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