Global business leaders en route to the World Economic Forum in Davos were wooed by President Emmanuel Macron at the grand Versailles chateau near Paris. British business leaders got 14 minutes with their prime minister yesterday ahead of their annual lunch on the fringes of the conference.
“A brush past,” was how one FTSE 100 chief executive described it.
The prime minister was chaperoned by Gavin Patterson, chief executive of BT and wannabe matinee idol throughout. Unlike her predecessor, Mrs May has shunned business. Was the man from BT there to protect her or introduce her to a business community she barely knows, asked one in the room.
Among the small number to actually buttonhole her was Iain Conn, chief executive of Centrica, who appeared to be being remarkably polite, despite the prime minister’s very un-Conservative plans for an energy price cap wiping billions off his market value in recent months.
There was also a warm welcome from Michael Spencer, former treasurer of the Conservative Party and close friend of David Cameron, despite the (continued) lack of a knighthood.
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Others to meet the PM included Paul Manduca, Prudential chairman, BP’s Carl-Henric Svanberg and former hedge fund manager turned human rights campaigner Bill Browder.
There was little time for them to discuss the nuances of the Canadian trade deal as opposed to the Norway model.
The prime minister didn’t even manage to get a glass of wine, barely making it more than 10 metres into the room before she made her exit and was whisked off to address the delegates in the main hall and meet “the Donald” for a bi-lateral.
As for the actual lunch, the UK’s finest had to make do with a speech . . . from the chancellor, who has stood in since the departure of Mr Cameron, who was a regular speaker when he was prime minister.
It was left to Sir Martin Sorrell, chief executive of WPP, to thank the chancellor and urge the British government to follow President Macron’s lead and “engage with the business community”. What could he have meant?