Bilderberg 2013: British Treasury Admits Chancellor Held Discussions In Official Capacity

Taxpayer will foot the bill for George Osborne’s expenses at secret meeting

Steve Watson
Infowars.com
June 21, 2013

The British government has officially responded to a Freedom of Information Act request regarding the Chancellor of The Exchequer’s presence at the 2013 Bilderberg Group meeting.

In a letter penned by the Treasury, James Underwood of the Rights Unit, provides answers to three questions penned by Alexander Baron of the Digital Journal.

In his May 7th letter, Baron asked whether George Osborne, Britain’s head finance minister, would attend the Bilderberg meeting held in Watford from 6-9 June. He also asked in what capacity Osborne would be attending and who would be paying for his expenses.

The Treasury responded AFTER the conclusion of the conference to confirm that Osborne did indeed attend, and that his expenses would be paid for by the Treasury – ie the taxpayer.

While the government’s response claims that the Chancellor attended as a private individual, it also states that “For discussions in the periphery of the Bilderberg meeting, on issues of concern to the UK, the Chancellor acts in an official capacity.”

The letter also states that the Bilderberg meeting “affords the opportunity to meet other Finance Ministers and senior members of International Organisations,” and compares it to EU, IMF and G7 and G20 meetings.

Of course, the difference is that all of those meetings are on the record, where as Bilderberg takes place in total secrecy behind closed doors. The admission that George Osborne held secret discussions at Bilderberg in an official capacity with other finance leaders and the heads of international banking, at the expense of the taxpayer, represents a direct violation of the Ministerial code.

MP’s are not authorised to attend private meetings without disclosing details to the public, and they are also supposed to have a secretary on hand making minutes, which is not the case at Bilderberg. Even if Osborne held some discussions in a personal capacity, rather than an official one, that can still be classed as a conflict of interest given that he is an elected official.

This is not the first time that Osborne has been caught in the act. In 2011, The London Guardian reported that according to the Treasury, Osborne was attending the Bilderberg meeting in Switzerland in an official capacity as the British Chancellor. Despite the fact that this violates the Ministerial code, Osborne faced no repercussions.

Both Osborne and his opposition counterpart, Ed Balls (as well as Prime Minister David Cameron) attended the elite meeting this year. The two are often painted up as bitter political rivals in the British media, yet they have attended several of the secret confabs together in recent years.

Both Alex Jones and Paul Joseph Watson of Infowars confronted Mr Balls, the shadow Chancellor, when they ran into him at the BBC in London during a live broadcast that Alex was invited to appear on.

Balls refused to discuss his Bilderberg attendance and even denied that he had sworn to uphold the Ministerial code:

Bilderberg Delegate Speaks On Record

Elite Group members realising that increased exposure means they can no longer hide

Steve Watson
Infowars.com
June 10, 2013

A Bilderberg Group delegate who attended this past weekend’s secretive elite meeting has discussed the organisation on record, in a move that signifies a shift toward more transparency, enforced by alternative media and activist exposure.

Sir Sherard Cowper-Coles, a former leading British ambassador to Afghanistan, now a leading executive at arms manufacturer BAE Systems, spoke on record to The Watford Observer today.

Predictably, Cowper-Coles merely repeated the establishment media hoax that Bilderberg has no influence and is merely a “talking shop” or a golfing holiday.

“I can honestly say, having been at the meeting, all the conspiracy theories are wrong.” he said, adding “It was just a private discussion of the kind that takes place at conference centres all around the world, all the time.”

“I don’t know [why people protest the meetings], I suppose one thing that distinguishes Bilderberg is it’s pretty high level. But I am slightly at a loss to understand exactly why it should be controversial.” the ex-diplomat stated.

On Saturday afternoon, close to 2000 protesters crammed into the designated campaign area in the grounds of the Grove Hotel in Hertforshire, England. Cowper-Coles claims that some Bilderberg members strayed from their rooms behind the ring of steel fencing, and actually walked down the grounds to look at protesters.

“The protest wasn’t discussed during the meeting but everyone was aware of it and some parties actually went down to see the demonstrators and find out what was going on.” he noted.

Infowars reported last week that an unnamed Bilderberger would speak about the group on record, after a source close to the security operation surrounding the confab told our reporters that numerous Bilderberg Group members are aggrieved at the organization’s obsession with secrecy and want to see more transparency.

Sherard Cowper-Coles also defended the secrecy surrounding the meeting, noting “It is the rule of the group that all these senior people are able to exchange views in private, it is no different from many other conferences where proceedings are conducted under what is called the Chatham House Rule.”

“I found the experience very interesting and very valuable. We covered a wide range of topics – everything from Syria to the economic situation to British membership of the EU and even big data, which is very topical.” he added.

“It was two and a half very full days of discussion. We covered jobs and the global economic situation, growth, European politics, Africa, the Middle East, big data, medical research, nationalism, populism, online education, cyber warfare, America and the World, Syria.” Cowper-Coles also stated.

Cowper-Coles also predictably claimed that anyone who attends Bilderberg does so in a personal capacity, and not as a representative of any government, organisation or corporation.

“I am sure that was the case [that he was invited due to his diplomatic experience] I certainly wasn’t there representing BAE.” he said.

Those claims run counter to comments made in 2011 by the office of British Chancellor George Osbourne, as aides disclosed to the London Guardian that the head of the Treasury was there in an official capacity.

Osbourne was once again present at this year’s meeting, along with his opposition counterpart, MP Ed Balls, and the Prime Minister David Cameron.

Labour MP Michael Meacher, who visited protesters at the weekend, today made good on his vow to officially quiz Osbourne on his Bilderberg attendance. However, it was MP Kenneth Clarke, a Bilderberg Steering Committee member who answered the question in the House of Commons, dismissing any theories that the group influences public policy, and claiming that the group is not beholden to public scrutiny.

British Finance MPs To Attend Bilderberg Meeting

Both government and opposition heads of finance to participate in secretive confab

Steve Watson
Infowars.com
June 3, 2013

Both the British Chancellor of the Exchequer, and his opposition counterpart are scheduled to attend the secret elite meeting of the Bilderberg group this weekend.

Chancellor George Osbourne and Shadow Chancellor Ed Balls, often painted up as bitter political rivals in the British media, will be buddying it up behind closed doors at The exclusive Grove Hotel in Watford with over 100 of the world’s elite.

Bilderberg’s own attendee list confirms the attendance of Osbourne and Balls. The list has been released on the group’s otherwise sparse website for the past three years, primarily because it was constantly being leaked to researchers anyway, and as a way of feigning transparency.

While Obsourne and Balls have regularly attended the annual gathering for the best part of a decade, critics have continually asked why the British taxpayer should be paying for elected politicians to attend an undisclosed meeting, completely closed off to media scrutiny, and in the company of private bankers and other foreign finance politicians.

Bilderberg delegates attend in an informal, off-the-record basis and are not bound by their public, “pre-agreed” positions, according to the group’s website. Quite how that marries up with Osbourne and Balls’ attendance, as acting financial heads of Britain’s government, is anyone’s guess. British MP Kenneth Clarke, a long time attendee, is also once again reporting to his masters.

If anyone still actually read the London Times, which they don’t, they would see an article today arguing that Bilderberg is merely a talking shop where no policies are set or agreed upon.

Such detractors routinely contend that the annual elite gatherings are nothing more than an outdated irrelevant get together of aging has-beens whose power on the international stage has long since withered.

Take one look at the attendees at this year’s confab in Watford, however, and it immediately becomes clear that this is the absolute polar opposite of the truth.

Debating policy at this year’s meeting will be Eric Schmidt, Executive Chairman of Google, Craig J. Mundie, senior advisor to the CEO of Microsoft Corporation, and Jeff Bezos, the founder and CEO of Amazon.com. Another notable attendee is Peter Thiel, the man who provided the financial muscle for online ventures like Facebook and Paypal, as well as LinkedIn and Friendster.

There you have luminaries involved with some of the biggest online and social media companies on the globe, all in attendance together at a secret weekend getaway, due to discuss “How big data is changing almost everything.”

That alone should be enough to focus the attention of the mainstream media. But no.

Then factor in that also in attendance are José Barroso, the President of the European Commission, and Christine Lagarde, the much scrutinized Managing Director of the International Monetary Fund. Still no media coverage?

OK, how about the disgraced former CIA head and retired US General David Petraeus, currently embroiled in the centre of the Obama administration scandal regarding the Benghazi intelligence failures. Nah, that’s not interesting to the mainstream media.

Perhaps representatives from major US think tanks would perk interest? You like to have them on your news output every single day right mainstream media? You know, the guys from the Hudson Institute, the Council on Foreign Relations, the American Enterprise Institute, the Hoover Institution, the Peterson Institute for International Economics, the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, the Foundation for Defense of Democracies – all at Bilderberg.

Bilderberg also has the Vice Chairman and former Chairman of Barclays bank, the Deputy Chairman, Group Chief Executive and Group Chairman of HSBC, the Chairman and Vice Chairman of Goldman Sachs, and the CEO of TD Bank Financial Group.

Bilderberg has other senior figures from major banks, finance houses, and insurance companies all over the globe, including the Deutsche Bank of Germany, the Oesterreichische Kontrollbank AG Bank of Austria, the Swiss National Bank, the Dutch National Bank, the  Zurich Insurance Group, AXA Group, Prudential plc, and Novartis AG.

Not one but TWO Former US Secretaries of the Treasury are attending, as well as several acting European finance ministers and other elected representatives. Both the Dutch Prime Minister and the monarch Princess Beatrix will also be in attendance.

Also present will be executives from major energy companies such as Shell and BP, representatives from huge defense contractors including BAE, officials with bio-medial and pharmaceutical giants including Novartis, and monolithic agriculture producers like Syngenta.

Add a dose of professors, lecturers and researchers from major Universities and colleges all over the globe and you literally have a small gathering of people that oversee everything on the planet.

Yet, according to the mainstream media it’s all just one hell of a round of golf.

Previously leaked documents from meetings, as well as other innumerable examples, have illustrated how the Bilderberg Group, contrary to the media-generated myth that the confab represents a harmless talking shop, actually has a direct influence on world affairs, and sets the consensus for policy decisions sometimes decades in advance.

A clear example is the 1955 Bilderberg meeting held in Garmisch-Partenkirchen, West Germany. Documents read by the BBC and later released by Wikileaks divulge how Bilderberg members were discussing the creation of the euro single currency nearly 40 years before it was officially introduced in the 1992 Maastricht Treaty.

It is clearly asinine to suggest that this group of people hold no power and do not have any sway on the international stage. Their influence is irrefutable.

Ask anyone if they believe banks and corporations have more influence on world affairs than politicians and close to 100% will say yes, so why is it that the G8 summits garner wall to wall media coverage yet Bilderberg does not?

British citizens, as well as citizens of the other countries from around the world, should en mass demand to know why democratically elected Members of Parliament and government, including the heads of national Treasuries, are meeting in secret with private financiers, bankers, defense contractors, oil multinationals, food giants and drug companies.

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Steve Watson is the London based writer and editor for Alex Jones’ Infowars.com, and Prisonplanet.com. He has a Masters Degree in International Relations from the School of Politics at The University of Nottingham, and a Bachelor Of Arts Degree in Literature and Creative Writing from Nottingham Trent University.

This article was posted: Monday, June 3, 2013 at 12:58 pm

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British Finance MPs To Attend Bilderberg Meeting