Watford, sunny Watford, has changed the hitherto secretive Bilderberg conference forever. In a freshly strimmed corner of the grounds of the Grove Hotel, half a mile from the most important international policy conference in the world, something remarkable happened: the mainstream press showed up. In droves.

 

While they talked and reported, on the first day of the four-day event, politicians and businessmen sped past behind blacked-out windows: the guest list, published for the first time, includes George Osborne, Ed Balls, the founder of Amazon, chairman of Google and the chief executives of both BP and Shell.