Davos lunch cancelled by CBI amid cost-of-living crisis

BRITAIN’S biggest business group has cancelled its annual lunch at the World Economic Forum in Davos to focus on tackling the inflationary crisis on its doorstep.

The Confederation of British Industry (CBI) will not hold the lunch, which is normally attended by the Chancellor or Prime Minister, at next week’s gathering of the global elite because members are absorbed by the cost-of-living crisis, sources said.

It comes amid fears that Davos will be a damp squib this year.

Neither Rishi Sunak nor Boris Johnson is attending. A number of billionaire business leaders, including JP Morgan chief Jamie Dimon and Goldman Sachs boss David Solomon, are also skipping the event in Switzerland.

Many of Davos’s regular meetings, including some cocktail receptions and the CBI lunch, will not go ahead this year and the meeting is also being shunned by Joe Biden, US president.

However, Volodymyr Zelenskyy, Ukraine’s president, and Olaf Scholz, the German chancellor, will give speeches next week.

One bank executive said: “It sounds like quite a few firms are either not going or are downgrading the level of people going.”

A billionaire investor who usually attends Davos said he does not plan to go back again.

He said: “I’ve done it for 10 years. Been there, done that.”

A spokesman for the World Economic Forum said: “We have over 300 government leaders, including 50 heads of state and government attending this year’s meeting – more government representation than we had during our 50th anniversary in 2020.

“UK presence will be led by Alok Sharma addressing the climate agenda, where Britain has played a leading role.”