My Davos spy disguised as an Uber Eats driver sent word that this year’s World Economic Forum was rammed ahead of Donald Trump’s arrival. The Alpine resort was heaving with Saudis, Emiratis, AI snake-oil salesmen and US tech titans strongarmed into sponsoring USA House, the official showcase of America’s ‘unity, ingenuity and leadership’ that has its main venue in the town’s English church – ideal for Trump veneration. Attendance was so competitive that the market in fake VIP passes was hotter than precious metals and one African statesman was seen parting with €25,000 in cash for a rented apartment.
But this year’s theme, ‘A Spirit of Dialogue’, looked ironic given the monologue expected from a US President representing the very antithesis of ‘Davos Man’: that archetype of the virtue-signalling attendees who previously worshipped at the feet of Bono and Bill Gates.
Many commentators have argued that the smug liberal elite who bossed Davos a decade ago – and whose last flagbearer is the Canadian leader Mark Carney, fresh from his Washington-defying trade deal with China – fuelled the discontents which brought Trump and his posse to power. But I know which party I’d rather share an overpriced Swiss pizza with. And my man on the ground tips the Ochsen 2 bar on Talstrasse as a locally favoured place to avoid ‘Davos dicks’ of all stripes.
Hang on to your teapots
Time to sell the family silver, or buy more? Those Edwardian teapots at the back of the cupboard have soared in bullion value in the past six months from £28 to £70 per troy ounce, outstripping gold, which has risen a mere 40 per cent, and smashing bitcoin, 30 per cent down. Precious metals have strong safe-haven appeal to retail investors, many of whom follow each other in internet chat-rooms – as happened in a short-lived ‘silver spike’ on the Reddit platform in 2021. In silver’s case, there’s also rising industrial demand for its electrical and thermal properties in solar panels, electric vehicles and AI data centres.
And the price has been boosted by stockpiling in China and the US, the largest hoarder being J.P. Morgan Chase, the New York bank that’s reported to be sitting on 750 million ounces of physical silver – partly as security against the risk of turmoil in US government debt markets, exacerbated by Trump’s attack on the Federal Reserve.
One result, I’m told, is that the City has no bullion left to offer and can’t source more from America. Should you sell into the surge? London dealers have been spotted touring the provinces waving wads of cash but I’d say there’s further to go, so hang on. Should you buy more? Maybe not, you’re late on this bandwagon. But check your home insurance because burglars’ swagbags this winter are rattling with silverware.
Fearless highflier
Late in my banking career, I was asked as a veteran of overseas assignments to speak to a rather intense twentysomething called David Webb, who had been offered a posting to Hong Kong but was concerned about the small print of his contract. My task was to persuade him it was a smart career move. He scowled as I gave him my habitual sermon for youngsters: ‘Grab the ticket and go.’ But he went and never came back, to fly high as a headline-making activist investor, a fearless campaigner for better behaviour in Hong Kong’s rackety stock market, and a voice for democracy as the former British territory came under Beijing’s boot. Now, just 60, he has died of cancer, so I’ll never know whether I influenced his decision. But I’m glad to think he never regretted it.
Ill-fated Reeves
Two ministerial moves you may not have noticed this week. Firstly, Rachel Reeves was due to declare ‘a new golden age’ for the City, with the easing of rules for new share and bond listings, in particular making corporate bonds more accessible to smaller investors. Alongside the FTSE100 breaching 10,000 and a buzz of new companies coming to the stock market, this might have looked like spring arriving early for Reeves. But she had to shelve her Monday speech to make way for the Prime Minister’s statement on Greenland. No tears reported this time, but fate just isn’t kind to this embattled Chancellor.
Secondly and belatedly, Environment Secretary Emma Reynolds announced a ‘once-in-a-generation’ overhaul of the water industry under a new super-regulator to replace the existing tangled structure – a bureaucratic challenge that will take many months to put in place while South East Water and others continue to enrage customers and Thames Water teeters towards bankruptcy. Take my word for it, the water crisis will run and run.
Boost for bookshops
The government’s U-turn on business rates for pubs provoked a chorus of special pleading from other high-street operators – among whom I’ll spotlight one category. In this National Year of Reading, in which children and young people are being urged to leave social media aside and discover the imaginative universe of the printed word, I’m all for favourable tax treatment of independent bookshops.
Bricks-and-mortar bookselling, it must be said, has not suffered like the pub trade. It has been resilient since the pandemic, with more openings than closures in 2025 raising the number of outlets to 1,069 from a low of 867 in 2016. But a Booksellers Association survey says 85 per cent of members are ‘less likely to invest in stock, staffing, events or their premises’ after the business-rate sting in the recent Budget. Spectator readers, I’m sure, regard the well-stocked bookshop as a last enclave of civilised society threatened by barbarian advance. So come on, Chancellor, help booksellers improve kids’ minds – and in doing so, feel a little better about yourself.
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