Bilderberg Goes Semi-Public

Never thought I'd see the day. I really have no idea what to make of this:

An extraordinary thing happened last weekend. The world's most secretive strategy group, Bilderberg, poked its nose out of the shadows and launched its own website: bilderbergmeetings.org. For an organisation that prefers to cordon the press a mile from its meetings, whose press relations policy to date has been to arrest, harass and search journalists, this was an astonishing turnaround.

Until now, David Rockefeller's policy forum carried on quietly out of sight. It welcomed politicians (David Cameron in 2008, George Osborne 2006-2009) to strategise in secret with corporate heads, European royalty and bank bosses. This year saw Google CEO Eric Schmidt take part alongside Robert Zoellick (president of the World Bank), Bill Gates and the usual sprinkle of EU commissioners and Goldman Sachs heavyweights. If you didn't know it was going on, that's understandable. It's what they wanted.

This year, in the Spanish seaside town of Sitges, the sheer weight of attention on Bilderberg became too much for its policy of "ignorance management". TV crews at the police line, bloggers blogging, the Spanish press asking questions about cost, the Canadian press wondering at this year's unusual glut of Canucks – finally, the mainstream press was taking notice. I found myself taking part in a debate on the BBC World Service. I knew something had changed when Kate Adie spoke passionately of her concerns about the armed secrecy of Bilderberg.

This secrecy in action is quite a sight. For four whole days, a normally tranquil hotel on the Spanish coast was transformed into the Pentagon: riot police, police helicopters, military divers moored offshore, and hundreds of plain clothes officers – a mammoth €10m campaign of press exclusion for a "private meeting", all paid for by the already hard-pressed Spanish taxpayer...

Still, never mind the guns: this year all the furious secrecy and bonkers policing didn't stop the story breaking. The bizarre atmosphere of confusion, paranoia and misapprehension – a direct result of Bilderberg's half-century history of press suppression, of delegates crouching on limo floors, or lying to their parliaments that they've attended (I'm talking to you, Tony Blair) – is finally lifting...

No longer able to deny its existence, Bilderberg has shifted gear: the story they're putting out now is that "nothing goes on", "just some old chaps having a chinwag" – old, insignificant chaps like José Zapatero (the Spanish PM), Peter Voser (CEO of Royal Dutch Shell), Paul Volcker (chairman of Obama's economic advisory board), Richard Holbrooke (Obama's special envoy to Afghanistan and Pakistan), Josef Ackermann (CEO of Deutsche Bank). Have a look online at our Bilderberg 2010 "Power Gallery" for more "golfing buddies"...

UPDATE: Mind you, I have my doubts as to the authenticity of the site. I mean, anyone can put up a big old "Official Website" thing. And the privacy policy and liability information sound odd.