REVEREND GEORGE PITCHER: We are all in it together

Like “reputation,” integrity is one of those words that business leaders and politicians walk around with without giving a second thought to what it means.

Rishi Sunak claimed he would serve as Prime Minister of Integrity, presumably as a means of putting some conservative blue water between him and his quixotic predecessors.

Last month, the Financial Conduct Authority fined commercial bank Julius Baer International £18m for ‘disregarding business conduct’.

In these contexts, it is invariably assumed that ‘integrity’ means the quality of being open and honest and acting with firm moral principles. And it does.

But the word also has another meaning: to be solid, strong and whole. The latter word has the same etymological root as ‘sacred’, more on that in a moment.

An engineer might speak of the integrity of a bridge’s structure or the failure of an aircraft’s airframe integrity.

Integrity in this sense simply means that the whole structure is supplied with sufficient strength by every part.

That’s not a bad principle to apply to a business. Because when we are part of a corporate structure, we need to know that we are as robust as the other human components and that our colleagues share our own strength and wholeness. All too often there is the temptation to internalize our own integrity and ignore the lack of it around us.

An example of this could be provided by the World Cup. During the opening ceremony, we were urged to forget about Qatar’s lack of integrity in domestic and international affairs and just ‘enjoy the football’.

But the World Cup inevitably served to draw global attention to Qatar’s shortcomings. From the oppression of LGBT citizens to the exploitation of migrant workers, from allegations of bribery and corruption from football’s governing body, FIFA, to its now apparent attempts to distort European democracy in the EU Parliament.

It’s the same story closer to home, in some of the economic issues we face. The worst cost-of-living crisis in memory requires us to consider our strengths and weaknesses as a whole: the integrity of society’s fabric.

If there are people who are having a hard time this winter, such as the elderly and the vulnerable who are at the mercy of energy and other prices, then the integrity of our social design structure is weak.

The same goes for tax. For several decades, commendable efforts have been made to build a meaningful ‘responsible tax’ structure so that the burden is shared equitably.

Liz Truss’ premiership failed on that principle. Her proposal to drop the highest tax rate for the highest incomes was not sound.

We can continue. Generation Z are the youngest members of our workforce. They are fully tech savvy and used to working from home.

Employers must decide how the integrity of their corporate structure can withstand new work practices. Because the act of being integrated into a workforce comes from the same word: integrity.

Likewise, ESG is the latest three-letter acronym for integrity: Environmental, Social, and Governance. Or, as critics would call it, “greenwashing.” We may wonder what the ‘social’ part is actually about. Is it the corporate responsibility to serve the community, what should be the meaning of corporate integrity?

These are questions that are good to ask at Christmas. That’s partly because we come together as people, rather than as bosses, employees, or professionals. And maybe we feel that strength in numbers, as families and friends. But we also come together as a people. Not just the people of this country, but of all nations.

And maybe we feel the power of the integrated world, our collective integrity.

Christians believe that Christmas celebrates the divine sharing of the human condition in the incarnation – more simply, the greatest gift is a little baby who will change the world forever.

Former Chancellor George Osborne said: ‘We are all in this together’. Whether that was a political slogan or a fundamental truth really doesn’t matter. The point is that at Christmas the divine meets humanity where it lives and flourishes.

That means we’re all in it together. And that really gives the entire human body worldwide its corporate integrity.

George Pitcher is a visiting fellow at the London School of Economics and an Anglican priest