Morality

The Qatargate scandal haunting the European Union is not merely about corrupt politicians and officials. The deplorable role of a non-governmental organisation is at the heart of the scandal, which highlights the interlocking of NGOs and EU parliamentarians and decision makers. The most interesting feature of the corruption scandal surrounding the detention of the EU parliament’s vice-president Eva Kaili and politicians and EU apparatchiks is their connection to a supposedly squeaky-clean NGO called Fight Impunity. The current president of the organisation is Pier Antonio Panzeri, 67, a former Italian leftist MEP. He was arrested after €600,000 in bank notes was found in his house in Brussels.

Gstaad Who was it who said good manners had gone the way of black and white TV? Actually it was yours truly after watching the slobs parading up and down Gstaad’s main street. That was last year, but the bad news is that this year slobovia has come to stay again. Mind you, Alexandra and I had planned to have 50 friends for a party to celebrate 50 years of my enslavement, but Mister Omicron arrived and put a damper on our plans. The tent on the lawn and the oompah band were cancelled, and the New Year’s Eve blast turned into a smallish affair. The good news is that there are still a few people who don’t adhere to the online culture of today, that of anger, incivility and non-stop use of the F-word.

There’s an Old Testament story that ought to be better known (who does God’s PR these days?). King David is in his palace, and a servant announces that he has a caller. It’s Nathan the prophet. Good old Nathan — committed to maximizing the life-chances of the poor, a real old-school man of the people, and often a bit spiky with it — a man to keep onside. Yes, yes, send him in. Nathan launches into a story about a humble farmer who has been conned by some smooth-talking landlord and has now lost his land and his last remaining lamb to this greedy sod. The king’s a bit disappointed that Nathan has brought such a tiny issue to his attention — he was hoping for a big juicy cause he could champion, so as to remind the people of his compassionate-conservative credentials.

Rabbi Jonathan Sacks, who died on Saturday at the age of 72, was a modern Maimonides, a guide to the perplexed in an age of spiritual confusion and moral dissolution. A philosophy student before he entered the rabbinate, Sacks combined the legacies of Athens and Jerusalem and became the leading public intellectual and ethicist of our time. A source of pride to Britain’s small and sometimes beleaguered Jewish community, Sacks did not just work to improve the moral state of the Jewish people and defend the state of Israel. Adeptly linking the particular to the universal, he defended the religious conscience, and identified the common ground through which interfaith negotiations have transformed Jewish-Christian relations.