EDITOR'S NOTE: Gupta spin firm squirms
With its sordid history, Bell Pottinger was never going to be a cuddly PR outfit. But its tin ear for the mood in SA meant it miscalculated badly
If Hendrik Verwoerd were to come into power today and look to apply some lipgloss to a villainous new policy (let’s call it apartheid), there’d be one company he’d want on his speed-dial: spin doctors extraordinaire Bell Pottinger. Chilean dictator Augusto Pinochet, paralympian Oscar Pistorius, Bashar al-Assad’s wife, crooked arms dealers BAE Systems, Belarus dictator Alexander Lukashenko — the public relations firm slapped layers of lipstick on all those skunks. Sanctimoniously, it boasts of "developing brands and reputations across Africa". That’s deeply ironic, considering how the company, founded in 1989 by Margaret Thatcher’s spin doctor, Lord Tim Bell, has fouled its own reputation by doing some rather shady things for the Gupta family since March. The first inkling of dubious ethics emerged in July when Bell Pottinger somehow (oh, just guess!) got hold of the "findings" of Mosebenzi Zwane’s committee on the banks — weeks before anyone else, including parliament. It offered th...
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