One thing you can never accuse the secret service bodyguards who look after bigwigs in the US administration of is secrecy. They have been very hard to miss, or to escape, in Davos this week.

The most obtrusive presence has been that of Condoleezza Rice, US secretary of state. Each time she passed through the Belvedere Hotel the security men and women shut down access to the lobby for 15 minutes.

I know this because I had to cool my heels twice when I was blocked from entering the lobby so the guards could establish the zone around Ms Rice. The second time, the lobby puzzlingly remained blocked even well after she had left. Eventually, Al Gore walked through it with his own guards.

I did gain some amusement from seeing one US security guard failing to get through the hotel’s metal detectors with his radio earpiece firmly in place. “I’m secret service,” he said irritatedly as the Swiss guards scanned him by hand.

January 24, 2008 5:50am in Business | Comment