Issue of the week: clouds over Davos

Economic rumblings and the retreat of democracy weren’t great omens for this year’s World Economic Forum

“Never has the prospect of spending a few days in the Swiss Alps seemed less appealing,” said Simon Jack on BBC Business. For nearly 50 years, the great and good of world business and politics have headed to Davos “to ruminate on the future of the global economy” and “improve the state of the world”. But this year was remarkable mainly for the absences. Against a darkening economic backdrop and a rising tide of populism, many leaders, including Donald Trump, Emmanuel Macron, Theresa May and Narendra Modi, all decided “the world can frankly wait while they tend to more pressing issues at home”. And the mood among business leaders was sombre, said Larry Elliott in The Guardian. A pre-davos poll by PWC found that “the rise in pessimism among CEOS was unsurpassed in the 22 years it had been conducting the survey”. The chief fears are “rising protectionism” and a further slide in Us-china relations.

“Davos, it seems, has become a political liability,” said Rob Cox on Reuters Breakingviews. But at least “one of the new crop of disruptive leaders” was prepared to navigate “the icy sidewalks” to address “the well-tailored throng”. Brazil’s newly elected strongman, Jair Bolsonaro, was the top draw for many investors keen to learn more about his plans to “defeat socialism” by reforming tax, privatising assets and prioritising family values. “Authoritarianism is on the march,” said Martin Wolf in the FT. And no longer just in developing countries. “For this, the failures of existing governing and commercial elites – their indifference to the fate of large parts of the population, their greed and incompetence – are heavily to blame.” Those lucky enough to live in lawabiding democracies must “dedicate themselves to making them work better” and passing them on to the next generation. “Davos people, please note: this is your clear responsibility.” This year’s meeting took place against an “anti-big-business backlash from Britain’s populist Brexit insurgency”, said Jeremy Warner in The Sunday Telegraph. A leaked recording of Chancellor Philip Hammond’s conference call with business leaders – in which he attempted to assure them that a ruinous no deal was off the table – has been slammed by many Brexiters as an “establishment stitch-up”. The object of Brexit was “merely to leave the European Union”. Yet it has “given wings to a whole host of simmering discontents” and unleashed forces that its freetrading cheerleaders “will struggle to control”. As Brexit’s politics “spiral out of control, there is a growing sense of unease and fin de siècle among business leaders. Strange times indeed.”