What's Prince Andrew doing in Davos anyway?

His presence is a sign of the event’s degeneration

(Getty Images)

Whatever allegations may have thronged the airwaves as Prince Andrew prepared to host a reception for business people at Davos last night, they should not be allowed to divert attention from a larger, and quite separate, point. The notion that the Prince is there at all, let alone playing host at an event promoting UK trade, provides an eloquent comment on the way the World Economic Forum has degenerated over the years.

From a serious gathering of super-influential people exchanging super-influential ideas it seems to have become an alpine jamboree whose whole purpose seems to start and stop at corporate entertainment, and where superannuated CEOs and spark-free politicians try to catch some glitz, and perhaps some donations, from brushing against new-money celebrities and old-money royals.

The Duke of York has not been the UK’s trade envoy now for the best part of four years, so it would seem to be entirely his royal cachet that prompted this invitation, and I find it patronising – not to say outdated - that Great Britain plc seems still to believe in the power of a Prince to curry favour with “abroad”.

Maybe there are still parts of the world where the titles Prince or Duke (rather than royal functions, such as the Queen’s) are held to scatter some star dust. But does that include Davos? And if it does, how much longer can the World Economic Forum possibly warrant its reputation as THE place to be in mid-January? Even without the sex allegations from Florida, Prince Andrew and Davos deserve each other.