Reblogged from Michael Meacher MP:
Bilderberg is coming to Britain next week to plot the next steps for a desperately failing global capitalism. The Bilderberg conference is the regular get-together of the Western financial elite and top business corporates at which amid intensive mutual lobbying they try to coordinate their plans to maximise their interests over the coming period. It is attended by top bankers, leading corporate bosses, the heads of the key UN institutions (IMF, World Bank, WTO), EU Commissioners,and a smuttering of politicians from the US, Canada, UK and Europe seeking to understand better what are the next steps that the masters of the market are demanding. It is shrouded in deepest secrecy (no doubt that’s why Watford was chosen for the venue rather than London), secured by local policing paid for by funding washed through their very own charity, the Bilderberg Association. And it will be attended by George Osborne and Kenneth Clarke.
If politics is about power, and it is, these are the people with the most power in the world, or at least in the Western capitalist world, exercising dominant executive power over the global market-place. Whereas world political leaders often gather for little more than photocalls (e.g. G8 meetings) or for signing ceremonies pre-orchestrated by their sherpas, Bilderberg is a real meeting of decision-makers. Their Steering Committee is chaired by Henri de Castries, CEO of the French insurance giant AXA, the billionaire venture capitalist Peter Thiel who founded PayPal, Thomas Enders boss of EADS the European defence flagship, Peter Sutherland chair of Goldman Sachs, and (believe it or not) Kenneth Clarke.
Davos is where they already meet each winter, but for them that has one overriding disadvantage. It is open to the press. Whatever they may be planning, it cannot be directly discussed if it might cause an explosion outside. Bilderberg allows them to say what they really think and to do the deals they really need in the safe knowledge that it will leak no further. It is an anti-democratic cabal, or as Adam Smith would describe it – a conspiracy against the public interest, plotted in utter secrecy and devoid of any public accountability.
It will be interesting to see how many British Ministers attend. As you would expect in such unsavoury surroundings, Osborne, the Mandelson of the Right, has attended at least five times previously. If as before he is attending in his official capacity, he will need to explain how that is consistent with his public commitment in 2010 to “the most radical transparency agenda the country has ever seen”.
