The current goings on in the White House are fascinating. The leaks about the personality of the leader of the Western World by his loyal or not so loyal staff ring so true, just from the way the President has behaved in public since coming to office. I cannot help but be reminded of the Roman Emperor Caligula who famously loved his horse Incitatus so much that he tried to make him one of his Consuls. Trump has by all accounts an alarmingly unsuitable personality and any sense of morality appears to be lacking; but maybe the horse is not on the agenda yet.

The world’s gone mad is an overused phrase but sometimes its use can be justified. I am tempted to use it about Brexit too but I think that is genuinely a step too far even though the economic harm we are doing to ourselves is real and quite dangerous: and we are also beginning to learn that international co-operation has never been more necessary. The attempted murder of the Skripals and the sad consequential death of Dawn Sturgess show that when we have a regime like Moscow which appears to have a contempt for diplomacy and the rule of law, a concerted international response is required. The trouble is, we do not seem to be a nation which believes that co-operating with others is top of our agenda.

It’s not just security where increased co-operation is required across borders. Global companies rule OK and they trade untrammelled by international borders. Amazon can wing its goods to whomsoever has ordered them, where ever they are in the world. Where they pay their taxes is a matter for them and it tends to be in tax regimes where they pay the least in taxes. You may say that this is a company just organising it affairs to their own advantage. However what they pay to UK PLC is considerably less than say John Lewis or Debenhams. Our High Street is in trouble, suffering from high business rates (avoided by the likes of Amazon) and full UK tax rates.  The contribution to the public purse falls heavily on the High Street retailers and hardly at all on Amazon and other online traders.  Thousands of our citizens’ employment is at risk by this unfair situation yet our government on its own is powerless to deal with this situation.

A concerted international effort is required to ensure that Global tax regimes are fair; and this is before you get on to the subject of debt payments by the world poorest countries who are paying back very large proportions of their national resources to the richer nations banks. Rabbi Jonathan Sachs this last week has presented a series of programmes on morality and he touched on the subject I have raised above. Where is the sense of morality and fairness in our national and international lives? Despite voluminous schedules of directors duties annexed to the Companies Act, the legislation to force companies to act in the public interest is limited. In truth, many of their activities are beyond the power of governments to control as I have illustrated in relation to taxation.

I do not rule the world but I do have some control over our little company employing 270 staff. We have decided that “why we do what we do” is very important. Our ethos is “making a positive difference.” We demonstrate this through what we do, how we behave to each other internally and by our influence on society at large. That is why we set up the Jackson Lees Foundation to pay 2% of our profits to charity and why we are “living wage” employers. What we all do matters and if we can only rule a tiny part of the world, then we at least will do what we can to make a positive difference. If we all do the same then the world will be a rather different place.