At this rate, there’s going to be a very empty hospitality tent, and a heck of a lot of canapés left over in Saudi Arabia. One by one, the bigwigs of the business and financial worlds have been pulling out of the Saudi investment conference, dubbed ‘Davos in the Desert’, which opened today. The reason? They are protesting against the killing of the journalist Jamal Khashoggi in Turkey. Of the 150 high-profile speakers lined up for the event, more than 40 have dropped out, and media partners such as Bloomberg, the FT and CNN have withdrawn their support. Those that are still making the trip have come under a lot of pressure to cancel.
You can debate the rights and wrongs of those decisions, whether the Saudis were responsible, and whether pulling out of the conference is the right response. But there is another point that is surely just as important. The proliferation of Davos-style talking shops has already gone too far.
The Saudi jaunt was typical of pious consultancy jargon and PR flannel that characterises these events. It
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