By Charlie Skelton
It’s all change at Bilderberg this year, with a new chairman, new media and Occupy Bilderberg knocking at the gates.
Everything’s set. The hotel is being primped and hoovered, the security is arriving, the press is nowhere to be seen, and I just had a really boring crab salad. It’s shaping up to be a vintage Bilderberg.
We were lunching adjacently in the Palm Court restaurant of the Westfields Marriott hotel, in Chantilly, Virginia. A few days from now, this hotel will be dripping with billionaires and bankers, industry CEOs and finance ministers, here for the annual Bilderberg summit. “The leaders of the world are coming to our hotel”, beams one member of staff. “Are you here for the brunch?”
We are. Most of the other guests have left by now. The hotel is edging towards lockdown. All that’s left is a team of nervy conference organizer who start filming us with their iPhones, several dozen security operatives, me, my wife and a really rather boring ‘spook’, brunching on an adjacent table.