Davos
(Picture: Evening Standard)High-altitude Davos in the dappled spring sunshine is an unusual week for the delegates jetting in from across the globe to the World Economic Forum intended to “improve the state of the world”. Cynics are quick to note that this form of free-market liberal aspiration mixes environmental commitments to save the Polar ice cap with helicoptered hedgefunders — and an entry form which asks politely if we arrived by commercial flights (plus a long train ride from Zurich to the Alps) or via private jet. The meeting, usually held in the ski season in January, has been twice postponed in the Covid era: hence the sandals instead of snow boots this week.
Something else has changed too. Even the official communiques of the “Forum” acknowledge that this meeting has taken place “against a backdrop of deepening global frictions and fractures as a starting point for a new era of global responsibility and cooperation”. Here’s hoping. But the Davos of liberal outlook and markets is under renewed strain as a new recession and inflationary spiral reminds us of the Seventies, when the early years of Davos were dealing with the oil price shock and a divided Cold War Europe.
