The Bilderberg Group fascinate me. Who wouldn't want to be a fly on the wall at their annual meeting? Hell, who wouldn't want to be invited to the meeting? If I was invited I'd know I'd reached the very top of the world order. But hang on. Would that really be true?
This year's Bilderberg Meeting, or Conference as it's known to Bilderbergers, has just ended in a blaze of media apathy. The Meeting in Copenhagen went almost without press comment; just a little spike of interest when the attendee list was 'leaked', or as I like to put it: 'released'. This total lack of interest is, in fact, more interesting than it might first appear. The media apathy is a sign that the Bilderberg Group continue to do their job; quietly and politely keeping us all in the dark.
Now I'm no conspiracy theorist but I do know that Bilderberg doesn't do anything by accident. The list of attendees means nothing. This is a list of people who don't mind it being known that they are attending the Bilderberg Meeting; in fact, they are desperate for you to know that they're on the global A-list. They're the ones who proudly stride up to the hotel's main entrance and wave to the cameras. They clutch bundles of documents and wear their Bilderberg lanyard like a medal of honour. For business reasons or personal pride, deep inside you know they're saying: 'I've made it! I am someone. At last! At last!' But only the most naïve of them, and us, would believe that they are anything other than political bubble wrap; the dispensable ones.
I know this because it mirrors the real, non-Bilderberg world. I act as a media consigliere to a clutch of global CEOs, and organise lots of behind-the-scenes meetings - and I can tell you one thing: no one who comes to any of my meetings will ever want to be named as an attendee on any publicly available list; nor will they ever be. And let's face it, I'm not the Bilderberg Group. If your name is on any list at all connected to Bilderberg you are probably the international and political equivalent of cannon fodder. You draw the flack while the people not on the list glide up to a side entrance and step silently and unrecognized into the hotel. And it's quite likely that if you are on the list, you know this too.
The thing you need to remember about The Bilderberg Group is that it doesn't just miraculously appear like an apparition once a year - this isn't the annual equivalent of the World Cup. It exists and operates all year round. The Meeting is just the candy floss; the part that enables the people with the real power to keep their finger on the pulse; to size up those people who might have, as they call it on their website, something 'interesting' to say. What they deem 'interesting' is anyone's guess. But my guess would be that it's probably a combination of influence expansion and succession planning.
When Bilderberg say about their annual Meeting: 'Move along, nothing to see here', they mean it and they're right. To all intents and purposes the Meeting is very impressive window dressing. The work of Bilderberg is not done at the Meeting; it's done later or early in chateaux in France and mansions in the northern USA. This is standard practice. It's the same with all meetings, not just the ones arranged by Bilderberg.
So, do I still want to be invited to the Bilderberg Meeting? Absolutely! Yes! I'd happily be the first name on the list - I'd have my bag packed and ready six months in advance. Why? Because I'm curious and interested. I want to meet all these people on the list; I'd love to meet the people on the list. I'm a human being. We all want to meet powerful people and talk to them face to face.
And what about the rest? What about the secrecy? Well, I'm a realist. Not everything in life is open and transparent; laid out naked and unashamed for public consumption. And not everything ever can be, or should be. Privacy is desirable and, yes, secrecy is sometimes necessary at every level. Do I think The Bilderberg Group should be more open? No I don't. They are not publically funded. They are not ours to hold to account. And anyway, what would be do without them? We'd have no global-government conspiracy theory to keep us warm at night - and the people who go in through the side door would have no control over each other. And finally, while Bilderberg exists, while the people not on the list are still talking to each other, perhaps, just perhaps, we're all just that little bit less vulnerable.