Bilderberg 2011: The tipping point | World news. This year, Bilderberg was bigger than ever. Bigger crowds, bigger names, more coverage. So here, starting with about the least most important thing, is what I've learned from this year's Bilderberg summit in St Moritz. I've got a bit of a crush on the Chinese vice-minister for foreign affairs Move over Queen Beatrix. Fu Ying is my new postergirl. I can't help myself. Always hopping about, taking photos of wild flowers, pointing at the view, laughing – she's like, I don't know, a normal person or something. The BBC turned up! But only in the form of Marcus Agius, the senior non-executive director on the BBC's executive board. Also on board was Washington hawk, and one of Bilderberg's nastiest pieces of work, Richard Perle.
Bilderbergers look down on things I've looked at hundreds of photos of the delegates on their nature walk through one of the world's most stunning valleys, and this is honestly the case: they don't look at the view. I think Tsoukalis and Fu Ying would make a good couple. Bilderberg 2011: The curtains are drawn | World news. Breaking news. There's been a bomb. Sorry, a "bomb". A "tubular device" has been "found" by the police, two people have been cuffed and whisked off, and the security is tightening fast. The bomb business has only kicked off in the last hour, but a photo of the arrest is winging its way down the mountain towards me. So yes – seems that I spoke too soon about a chilled-out Swiss Bilderberg. Now of course, when I describe what's gone up as a "security fence", what I actually mean is "privacy fence". But this isn't privacy. This is the bit about Bilderberg that I really don't get.
Let's suppose, shall we, that the amiable hosts – David Rockefeller, Henry Kissinger, and the Queen of the Netherlands – have the interests of the general public written in big red letters at the top of their conference agenda. Suppose all that. Why isn't Josef Ackermann, the CEO of Deutsche Bank, waving benignly to the crowds?
But listen, I know what you're wondering. Ah yes, the Bilderbus ... But they made it. Bilderberg 2012: guess who's coming to dinner | World news. Yesterday at 4pm a limousine with a police motorcade entered the rear entrance of the Bilderberg hotel. Heavy security, heavyweight politician. Let the guesses commence: was it Romney getting the green light for the presidency? Was it Hilary, nipping in to sign off on Iran? 4pm – time to freshen up, before a mix and mingle over cocktails, and a place at the top table for an extremely noisy dinner. The noise was courtesy of the Bilderberg bullhorn disco – an iTunes playlist, blasted out at the hotel.
Money can't buy you quiet: the bullhorn soundtrack to Bilderberg 2012. During cocktail hour, the delegates chatted amiably about Greek asset stripping to the tune of Killing In The Name by Rage Against The Machine. The Bilderberg bullhorns went head-to-head mid-afternoon, in the 'Best Rant' contest, for the chance to win a golden bullhorn. Packing noise: the weapons of choice of the 21st century patriot.
The security fence shook on its hinges as Milroy blasted Bilderberg. "It's weird. Bilderberg 2012: the technocrats are rising at this year's annual conference | World news. It's all change at Bilderberg this year, with a new chairman, new media and Occupy Bilderberg knocking at the gates. Everything's set. The hotel is being primped and hoovered, the security is arriving, the press is nowhere to be seen, and I just had a really boring crab salad. It's shaping up to be a vintage Bilderberg. We were lunching in the Palm Court restaurant of the Westfields Marriott hotel, in Chantilly, Virginia. A few days from now, this hotel will be dripping with billionaires and bankers, industry CEOs and finance ministers, here for the annual Bilderberg summit.
"The leaders of the world are coming to our hotel", beams one member of staff. We are. He droned on for the full length of a crab salad about his "internal and external drivers", about how "I got a panel of three-star admirals together" to secure a "$30m contract" and how "CACI excels in capture management". Bill Clinton was introduced to the political big league at Bilderberg 1991. What a difference a year makes. Bilderberg 2012: bigger and badder and better than ever | World news. "Not to be used as safety barriers" was the warning on the safety barriers that the police laid around the gates of Bilderberg.
The officers were firm but fair. "Madam, please step away with the balloons," they asked a protester, as she waved them angrily at arriving limousine. "But this is my first amendment right," she howled. I'll give you my balloons when you pry them from my cold, dead hands. It's hard to look furious when you're holding balloons, but somehow she managed it. Protestors outside the 2012 Bilderberg Conference in Chantilly, Virginia Photograph: Hannah Borno for the Guardian The official list of participants was released early this year.
That's if I managed to get past the eagle eyes of Senator John Kerry. What a lovely lot of politicians we've got at this year's Bilderberg. Why, it's cuddly old Bilderberg insider, the Lord Chancellor, Kenneth Clarke MP. "Transparency is the most effective public inoculation against corruption that any country can have.
How very true.