Bojo issues snow-go order after banning ministers from Davos
BORIS Johnson has taken the surprise step of boycotting Davos next year, banning his ministers from attending the annual World Economic Forum jamboree.
Buoyed by his thumping new majority in Parliament, the Prime Minister has decided to turn his back on the Swiss resort, which has become the premier networking event on the global calendar for the international business and political elite.
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A group of six senior ministers from the cabinet flew out to the previous WEF event, where bakeries, ski shops and chalets are transformed into corporate lounges and business receptions for three days.
However, a government source told the Daily Mail today that the focus was “on delivering for the people, not champagne with billionaires”, fresh off the back of a successful election campaign which pledged a “people’s government”.
US President Donald Trump and Chinese supreme political leader Xi Jinping are both expected to make the visit, as well as regular City attendees such as the Lord Mayor and the CBI.
“It can look to the outside eye like rich people drinking champagne but if you were somebody like the Department for International Trade, you can get through six months of meetings in one evening,” said Guillaume Amigues, who runs the Davos Unit in Portland and formerly worked for the WEF.
Iain Anderson, executive chairman at Cicero Group, said: “It is both an important signal but also a reflection of the withering value of these events for our politics”.
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Among this year’s headline events are several panels on the future of climate change and an outlook for financial systems in 2020.