The Economist UK - 31.08.2019

The EconomistAugust 31st 2019 Britain 27

2

W

hen annie adamsonpivoted her

coffee business, Bean Here, Bean

There, from serving commuters at rail-

way stations to providing sustenance at

weddings and parties from the back of a

Piaggio Ape three-wheeler, she wanted a

new name. “I thought I could be the top

dog, the head honcho, the queen bee of

mobile coffee,” she says. With such lofty

ambitions, the name was obvious: Queen

Bean Coffee. She filled in the necessary

paperwork and sent it to Companies

House. She also emailed the Cabinet

Office to ask for permission. “I am in no

way inferring any connection to our

monarch or indeed any monarch other

than that of the bee world,” she wrote

(apeis Italian for bee).

The reply from the Royal Names Team

arrived swiftly, telling her she couldn’t

be Queen Bean because her connection

to “the word Queen is not strong

enough”. The email suggested some

variations, such as Bean Queen. In the

end Ms Adamson settled on Queen Bee

Coffee, which makes up in its indisput-

able status as a common noun what it

lacks in bean-based wordplay. She was

keen, she says, to pick something that

“will work for my business but not dis-

please her majesty’s government”.

Ms Adamson fell foul of a complex

web of rules on the naming of businesses

in Britain. A company name must be

unique. It must not be offensive. And it

must skirt around three categories of

sensitive words that require varying

levels of permission from a rich assort-

ment of government departments and

private entities. A primary list of 135

sensitive words or phrases, such as

“queen”, must be approved by a secretary

of state or their representative. Another

28, such as “agency” or “assembly”, come

with looser preconditions. And there are

25 “other regulated words and expres-

sions”, such as “architect” or variations

on “Olympic”. Last year Companies

House vetoed 87 names, including Toss

Charity, Panda Knob and Royal Nuts—the

latter probably because of the first word

in its name, rather than the second.

Industry bodies and regulators keep

tabs on would-be impostors. Thus the

Financial Conduct Authority must sign

off any firm calling itself a “bank”, the

Nursing & Midwifery Council anything

with the word “nurse”, and so on. The

Company of Cutlers must issue a letter of

non-objection before any company may

use the word “Sheffield”, a city famous

for its silverware. Any business using the

word “scrivener”, a kind of legal officer,

needs clearance from the Church of

England, which regulates the profession.

“English” at the start of a name requires

owners to show that their firm “is pre-

eminent or very substantial in its sector”.

At least entrepreneurs have had more

words available to them since 2015, when

simpler rules came into effect. Words

they can now register without regulation

or oversight include “register”, “regu-

lation” and “oversight”.

Monikers Limited

Restricted company names

What not to call your business

Caffeine queen

His more significant legacy is his part in

establishing London as a hub for what he

termed geopolitical work and others call

reputation laundering. At the height of his

fame, he switched from advertising to pub-

lic relations. “His proximity to the pmdid

his business no harm,” says Bernard In-

gham, Thatcher’s press secretary. He won

one of his first clients, F. W. de Klerk, then

president of South Africa, by cold-calling

his private office, supposedly on behalf of

Thatcher—which he later insisted “was at

least 10% true”.

Colleagues called him a foul-weather

friend, since he had a penchant for the dod-

gier end of the market. Insisting that “mo-

rality is a job for priests, not prmen,” he

helped Augusto Pinochet, a Chilean dicta-

tor, escape extradition to Spain on charges

of torture, and massaged the reputations of

Alexander Lukashenko, a Belarusian

strongman, and Asma al-Assad, the Syrian

president’s wife. In one year he helped de-

vise both pro- and anti-smoking cam-

paigns. Bell Pottinger, the agency he found-

ed in 1998, created fake social-media

accounts and blogs. He was casual with

facts, “because people are casual”. “The

devil’s in the detail—and we didn’t want

the fucking devil,” he once explained.

How many of his campaigns worked is

open to question. He advised Pinochet’s fi-

nance minister and Jacques Chirac (“you

talk too much economic rubbish”) on elec-

tions they lost and masterminded the com-

munications strategy for Iraq’s “transition

to democracy” in 2004. He had a talent for

blaming bloopers on others: he insisted

David Mellor, an adulterous mp, decided on

an embarrassing photo-op with his family;

the unpopular idea to serve Spam fritters to

mark the 50th anniversary of d-Day was

“suggested by the Royal Marines, not us”.

Results mattered less than his charm,

which won him contracts from London

Underground though he never travelled by

Tube, from the National Union of Teachers

whose politics he deplored, and from the

bbc, months after he called for it to be sold.

In the end, like his idol, he went on too

long. He resisted attempts to tart up Bell

Pottinger’s image, failing to grasp the pre-

mium that social media places on authen-

ticity and the new spotlight on “fake news”.

The firm collapsed in 2017, after a secret

campaign to manipulate public opinion in

South Africa against “white monopoly cap-

ital” was exposed. By then, Lord Bell had

quit, blaming the company’s woes on other

executives. But he did not retire, and set up

another agency, Sans Frontières Asso-

ciates. Nor did he give up on fun. A friend

who visited him a few days before he died

found him glued to his beloved cricket. He

asked her to light him a cigarette. 7

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