Bell Pottinger lobbyist responds to furore over cancellation of Tory champagne reception

A mole gets in contact. Following the news that Bell Pottinger is cancelling its champagne reception at the Tory conference, the agency’s public affairs chairman Peter Bingle has sent a note to his team:

‘There is a different more sombre mood at Westminster. MPs now look over their collective shoulders. The old confidence and swagger has gone. The Palace of Westminster is a rather sad place….

 ‘Somehow the public’s trust in their elected representatives must be rebuilt. The next government is going to have to deal with the most enormous challenges. To be effective it will need to carry the public with it. To do that, politics must once again become important and relevant to the everyday lives of the public.

‘The public affairs world has its role to play in this process. When we do our job well we ensure proper dialogue between government and outside interests (commercial and non-commercial) which leads to better governance and good laws being passed. Our role is particularly important during times of change. We are sometimes attacked for what we do but most politicians understand our role and work well with us.  Friendships at Westminster are not and never have been beholden to one’s political party.

‘This year’s party conference season is going to be the most important since 1996. Political change is in the air but the air is sombre and serious. It is for that reason that we will not be holding our annual party. This year’s party conferences will be different and rightly so. We need to respect that.

‘At some stage in the future the political and public mood will change. It is important that it does so as there should always be room for fun in politics.’

Top lobbyist cancels champagne reception at Tory conference

I understand that Bell Pottinger is cancelling the champagne reception it usually holds in party conference season.

Bell Pottinger has held a champagne reception at one of the party conferences for the last 62 years (or something like that). There was great fanfare last year when the lobbyists announced they would be switching the annual champagne-fest from Labour conference to the Tory bash for the first time since the 1990s. The move was thought to symbolise Labour’s downfall and Cameron’s inevitable march towards Downing Street.

But this year it seems that not even the Tories will be getting the Bell Pottinger champagne treatment.

Why? I call Bell Pottinger public affairs supremo Peter Bingle for the lowdown. ‘The public mood has changed,’ he tells me. ‘The public is in a much more serious place than 12 months ago. Politics and public affairs has to adapt to that.’

Of course, Bingle is well aware that the Tories don’t want to be seen in public with his band of merry consultants. The Tories recently told lobbyists to back off in the pages of PR Week and they will be even more wary about dealing with them in the future following a recent warning from Guido Fawkes (see post below).

At this year’s conference Bell Pottinger and other lobbyists will hoping to deal with the Tories behind closed doors.

UPDATE: A version of this story is now on the PRWeek website