On a plane back to London. I had to leave on Friday evening as I was flying to South Korea on Saturday. Pity. There are always more people to meet at Davos. But I have over 40 of the best business cards and have emailed a quarter already. The Duke of York hosted a great reception at which the cream of British business and our inward investors were to be found. Present were the Chancellor and Lord Mandelson, and from the Opposition David Cameron and William Hague. The big Davos theme for me was whether the US recognises that we are in a multipolar world; whether financial services are going to go on dominating the agenda; and given that every nation has decided that exports are the key to growth, where is the domestic demand coming from?
Davos was very beautiful, with snow falling much of the time but occasional glimpses of peaks and slopes. The trees were encrusted with snow. It all brought back to me my youth when I was a snow climber. And for those that didn't want to use the cable car, the low carbon version for going downhill is the old-fashioned toboggan. After Korea, I'm off to Japan and then the Philippines. And to Shanghai to see the Expo Pavilion. I will use the flights to reflect on all the ideas I heard. But the one which is now instinctual is that the economy is global.