LONDON â€" As glamorous cosmopolitan venues go, Watford, England, belongs at the homely end of the scale. Davos it ain’t.
Yet this week the dormitory commuter town just to the north of London’s urban sprawl is playing host to a galaxy of global luminaries gathered for the latest meeting of the secretive Bilderberg Group.
The annual assembly that brings together politicians, business leaders, media moguls, top academics and even royalty is a favorite target of conspiracy theorists for whom secretive equals sinister.
This year’s lineup includes Gen. David Petraeus; Mario Monti, the former Italian prime minister; Eric E. Schmidt of Google; and Peter D. Sutherland, the chairman of Goldman Sachs International.
There is the usual bevy of bankers and, of course, Henry A. Kissinger, the former U.S. secretary of state, without whom no Bilderberg gathering would be quite complete.
The conspiracy theorists would have us believe that the participants belong to a powerful inner circle of unaccountable power brokers who choose the world’s leaders and determine the fate of the global economy.
“Some believe its overarching goal is even more insidious; the complete enslavement of the world’s countries and wholesale slaughter of most of the global population,†according to Derek Rodriguez, writing for truTV’s Conspiratorium â€" motto: “You won’t believe what you don’t know.â€
More restrained critics argue that, while the Bilderberg Group may not make formal decisions, it sets a consensus that spreads among business and political elites, molding the global agenda, according to my colleagues Alan Cowell and David M. Halbfinger, writing about a previous annual gathering.
So why has the group picked Watford after venues that have included St. Moritz, Versailles and Baden-Baden?
Local residents are asking themselves the same question and the mayor is getting prickly about the cost of policing the closed and heavily guarded conference site at the Grove, a luxury spa hotel in Watford.
“I think it’s outrageous that the local taxpayer has to pick up the tab for ostensibly a private meeting of trillionaires, probably the most wealthy people in the world,†said Mayor Dorothy Thornhill.
The multinational cast of 140 representatives attending the meeting will not have much opportunity to meet the locals.
The hotel has been fenced off behind what The Guardian described as the Great Wall of Watford to allow delegates to bond in seclusion as they debate issues that include the challenges facing Africa, the politics of the European Union and developments in the Middle East.
So it is unlikely that the meeting’s participants will escape to sample the delights of what Wikitravel, the free travel guide, describes as “still a somewhat dull area to visit,†while acknowledging that “Watford Town Centre comes alive at night particularly on Mondays, Fridays and Saturdays.â€
The annual invitation-only Bilderberg conferences are named for the Dutch hotel where the first meeting was held in May 1954, to debate issues surrounding the Cold War.
Delegates, drawn from the elites of Europe and North America, promise to keep quiet about what they hear and say in order to allow a free and informal exchange of views about global trends. That has fueled the widespread perception among conspiracy theorists and anti-globalization activists that they are up to no good.
Reporters and protesters are usually left standing at the gate. But this year, for the first time, the organizers have allowed a coalition of pro-transparency campaigners and alternative media to set up a media office in the hotel grounds.
Activists have announced a Bilderberg Fringe Festival, inviting “conscious citizens from all over the world†to head for Watford “and positively influence global powerbrokers to make the right decisions for our future … and have a fantastic party.â€
