BAFTA rescued by Sky

No posts for a while simply because the Burberry campaign has taken up so much of our energies since the press conference when we announced the intensification of the campaign. Since then we have had Burberry's 'offer' of the factory, the demonstration in London (I even missed the City home game when Chopra got a hat-trick!), and today's developments around the BAFTA nominees reception which Burberry was due to sponsor.

I am pleased that BAFTA has found a new sponsor for its nominees' reception following Burberry's extraordinary decision to pull out at the last minute. As I told the Chief Executive of BAFTA in an email on Monday, the target of our campaign was Burberry, not BAFTA. I said:

It was not our intention to inconvenience BAFTA itself, simply to make people aware of the situation facing Burberry workers in Treorchy. We said our demonstration would be peaceful and polite, if a little noisy. We have been contacted by BAFTA members from all over the UK who are sympathetic to our aims and expected to have substantial support. BAFTA award-winners Emma Thompson and Rhys Ifans have already given their support to the Burberry workers in Treorchy.

We wrote to celebrities asking to support the Burberry workers in a number of different ways – by boycotting the event, by attending but making their support for the Burberry workers known on the way in, by writing to the CEO of Burberry or by sending a message of support to the Burberry workers.

Even this afternoon we have had BAFTA celebrities getting in touch with us in connection with their support for the Burberry workers. Burberry is wobbling - the Board is clearly feeling the heat.