An investigation by the Indy has caught the BBC red-handed selling airtime for millions of pounds. They are trying to spin it as “nominal fees”, but a look at the numbers and content involved is pretty shocking:

“FBC produced programmes for the BBC about Malaysia without declaring that it had been allocated £17m by the Malaysian government to carry out a global strategic communications campaign. The BBC also found that FBC had breached programme guidelines on a programme it made on the subject of Egypt this March during the Arab Spring uprisings. The Independent has established that FBC has worked for the regime of the former Egyptian president Hosni Mubarak.”

Perhaps most damning is the fact that a BBC World documentary about climate change was sponsored by green crusaders Envirotrade. And of course “Envirotrade was featured in a positive light in the programme but viewers were unaware that there was a funding arrangement in place.” The BBC have ruled “that commercial, financial or other interests may have influenced the editorial judgments in these programmes.”

So remember that next time you swallow the Beeb’s “the debate is over” climate change line…

See also: Green Flatlining, CRU Boss Stands Aside, Queens University Blocking Data FOI, Time to Defund CRU’s Global Cooling Deniers, Climate Change Alarmism is Snow Joke

Last week Guido reported that Ed Balls had tried desperately to get one of his Shadow Cabinet colleagues to employ the apple of his eye, Ellie Gellard, as their political adviser. They all refused based on her lack of non-Twitter related experience. Having written his cornier speeches and been his general bag-carrier, today Guido can exclusively reveal that Balls has sorted her out with an actual job, in the actual private sector. As a lobbyist with Tetra Strategy…

This change of employment may not mean an end to late night Soho drinking sessions for Ed and Ellie. James O’Keefe and Lee Petar who run Tetra Strategy were both mentioned by Balls in the leaked Telegraph documents that revealed the extent of Balls’ personal war against Blair. Their lobby shop came to attention when it employed the disgraced expenses cheat Julie Kirkbride, more recently they came under the full media glare when it emerged they had been the organisation behind the now infamous meeting between Adam Werritty, Liam Fox and defence industry businessman Harvey Boulter. Industry sources imply that Tetra “do dodgy” – representing Russian oligarchs, the Government of Dubai, NHS contractors and private equity firms. Guido has confirmed that Ellie will be starting there next week, thanks to Balls. As members of the APPC, no Tetra employee can be a holder of a parliamentary pass, and at this time of heightened scrutiny of links between lobbyists and politicians she will have to surrender her pass on Friday…

Guido did try to ask Tetra Strategy what was it about the sultry 21 year-old that first attracted the lobbyists to hire her, was it her intimate knowledge of union affairs gained from Charlie Whelan? Was it her Twitter campaigning know-how? No one was available for comment…

This morning Guido blew open the extent of the GMB union’s influence over legislation, and how they achieve it with a financial gun to the Labour Party’s head. Not a word out of any of them yet, but it gets worse. The leaked Shadow Justice minutes show how Labour, at the behest of the unions, will vote on various amendments, but who first tabled these moves? A GMB sponsored Labour MP of course…

Not only has Kate Green taken £6,550 off the GMB, the union even notched up another £5,000 as a donation-in-kind, in the shape of tele-canvassing. Trade union liaison officers have the kind of unfettered access to Labour MPs of which other lobbyists for other vested interests can only dream. MPs shower parliamentary passes on what are effectively lobbyists for the big unions. The GMB have 80 MPs in their pocket and their political officer Iain McNicol just happens to be the General Secretary of the Labour Party. The GMB’s 610,000 members represent less a sliver of the country, yet laws are being bought and sold in their name. This tyranny of the minority stinks, and remember that next time Ed mentions the 1%…

Though he has his moments, few were surprised to see Labour MP John Mann contribute to the Westminster Hall debate on the lobbying on Tuesday. There was one particular target for his angst:

“Let us take the case of Bell Pottinger and the Werrity scandal. In that case, the question that arises is about the international role of lobbyists, because what has not come out is information about the role that Bell Pottinger was playing in Sri Lanka. People have been distracted from that issue, not least because Lord Bell is doing quite a lot of the public relations to try to cover his tracks and what was going on… Bell Pottinger is being paid to facilitate such things on behalf of the Government of Sri Lanka … 

There must be absolute transparency in all the meetings that we have as politicians, and there is not. The lack of transparency is the fundamental weakness that exists, with people claiming that “private engagements” have happened. There should be no such thing as a “private engagement” for a Minister, and there should be very little of it for an MP. There should be transparency.”

Some good points, however Mann failed to declare his own “private engagement” with Bell Pottinger. Attendees at the 2005 Labour conference regaled to Guido the spectacle of a grossly inebriated Mann skulling £46-a-bottle Mumm Cordon Rouge 1996 at the expense of, you guessed it, Bell Pottinger. A proud rent-a-quoter such as Mann should remember the one about glass houses…

“Asda has signed up former Department of Health comms chief Sian Jarvis to oversee its PR and lobbying” reports PR Week this morning. The former GMTV political hack spent twelve years spinning.

“Jarvis will already be familiar with the Asda comms team, as the supermarket has been a key funding partner in the DH’s Change4Life anti-obesity drive, which is promoted by Freud Communications. Coincidentally, Asda also uses Freuds for corporate PR advice. “

How convenient! No spell in the cooler?

Last week Ed promised to release a list of business clients he met at a dinner at the home of super-spinner Roland Rudd. So far he has not coughed the information. Lets ask him what he’s hiding…

Ed’s Twitter humiliation is becoming a near monthly occurrence. He’s doing yet another #AskEdM event at 15:00.

As ever Guido is making it easy for you to take part, all you have to do is click the box above and you are away.

Did you sup with a long spoon Ed, or were you the prey?

UPDATE: Are you listening Ed? Lots of people want a question answered:

With the LibDems trying to have their “told-you-so-moment” over a register of lobbyists, Guido drew your attention yesterday to the controversial spinmeister Clegg has brought into the heart of his operation – Olly Grender. Overnight many a co-conspirator also pointed out that Clegg’s Chief of Staff Jonny Oates is another flesh presser…

Starting at Westminster Strategy in the nineties, Oates worked his way up to become a director at Bell Pottinger in 2004. With a host of international and UK clients that would put any sandal-wearing LibDem member off their lentils, Bell Pottinger are the largest UK firm to refuse to take part in any of the voluntary regulation schemes that are around. Their chairman Peter Bingle has been at the forefront of defending the industry this week. Almost a lone public voice…

So two of Clegg’s closest advisers right now are former lobbyists. His promised clean up of the body politic clearly doesn’t start at home…

Ever the opportunist, Ed constantly tries to be the first out of the blocks in a crisis, so that he can harp on that the Prime Minister is following his example. It’s a useful tactic to mask the real weaknesses of his day-to-day leadership. Well today the tactic is being used with the state register of lobbyists. Except he is going to come unstuck, again…

Ed is expected to take to the airwaves this afternoon with the line tested by Shadow Cabinet Office minister Gareth Thomas, who told the BBC at the weekend:

“David Cameron has still not introduced the compulsory register of lobbyists he promised. The government should bring forward as a matter of urgency plans for a compulsory register of lobbyists with records being kept of meetings between lobbyists and ministers.”

But has Ed and his top team always been in favour of such a register? If so, why did he, along with Balls, Cooper and Gareth Thomas vote against a LibDem bill that would have brought in the register in 2006? Woops…

Via @JasonJHunter. The full list of who voted against the bill is here. 

Given that this is the week that shady chats and hand shakes in private rooms will be coming under extra scrutiny, Guido thought he would give Ed a gentle reminder of his promise to publish a list of attendees at a suspiciously “private and off the record” dinner held for him at the home of lobbyist-spinmeister Roland Rudd last week:

Ed has turned to the corporate lobbyist to boost his severely dented, if ever existent, reputation in the business world. Roland’s known clients include Murdoch, the Daily Mail, not so environmentally sensitive miners like Rio Tinto and African Barrick Gold. Rudd’s client list includes Boots and easyJet, owned by predatory asset stripping private equity companies, the most aggressive takeover group in the world KKR – the original “Barbarians at the Gate” - investment banks like Deutsche Bank and Standard Chartered, UK taxpayer bailed out banks like Royal Bank of Scotland and Greece’s bankrupt Alpha Bank. Glencore the rogue commodities trading operation run out of Switzerland retains Rudd.

Labour’s current favourite targets the big energy companies like ENI, Shell, EON and Centrica could have been sat round the table with Ed. Embarrassingly UK Uncut favourites Vodafone may have passed the port to Ed and given Rudd represents Wonga, which the Labour Party’s Stella Creasey campaigns against, there will be extortionate interest if they were there. Rudd represents hedge fund operators DE Shaw and the London Stock Exchange, currently home to the unwashed 0.99% in occupation. With all these “predators” at his fingertips, which ones did Rudd choose to give Ed “some straight advice”?  No wonder Ed is reluctant to admit who he had dinner with…

After his story earlier in the week about pro-Israel lobby group BICOM, Guido was tipped that their CEO Lorna Fitzsimons, the former Labour MP, was in some serious trouble. He was tracking down an email that was accidentally sent out on Monday to some of BICOM’s media list instead of the intended recipients – the donors. Annoyingly Ephraim Hardcastle beat him to it this morning and reveals how Lorna blurted to the world that she has been:

“…liaising with BBC and Sky to ensure ‘the most objectively favourable line was taken…I briefed Jonathan Ford, the Financial Times leader writer for his upcoming leading article… BICOM had regular contact with the Editor at Large of Prospect magazine, David Goodhart, helping to inform him about the forthcoming UN vote on Palestinian statehood…”

We have put the whole email online here. It’s standard lobbyist boasting, but Guido imagines the FT editors will take a dim view of any sign of them being influenced by a PR operation. A BICOM source tried to play down the story as “mildly embarrassing”, but it was the comment given to the Mail that really tickled Guido: “A BICOM spokesman denies that Ms Fitzsimons is to lose her job.” If you have to say it…

It is clear that all is not well at BICOM. The cock-up has apparently gone down rather badly, with some wondering how long Fitzsimmons can cling on. Two respected spinners have recently moved on after very short stays at the organisation – the LibDem Ed Fordham lasted just a month as their public affairs chief, and soon to be Head of Press at the Department of Education, Gabriel Milland, just six weeks. What can you spot in such a short space of time to make you run for the hills like that?