Former Cabinet Minister Addresses JABE Anniversary Dinner

Former Cabinet ‘minister and broadcaster Mr Michael Portillo addressed the Jewish Association for Business Ethics (JABE) 20th Anniversary Dinner and Business Panel held recently at the Park Lane Hotel. He told his audience that capitalism was in crisis due to a lack of ethics.

“In business there is a tendency to hang your ethics at the door. An individual’s sense of ethics gets subsumed into the business. Many people start with good moral instincts but they get lost over time.”

Mr Portillo praised the work of JABE in combating the lack of morals that led to the riots and the crisis in capitalism. “JABE is all about teaching ethics, to young people in schools and to businesspeople in the boardroom. But in order to succeed, it needs to be part of a larger cultural change. JABE is leading the way, but we're only at the start. The fact that there are so many people here at the JABE Dinner shows that people care. These standards haven't been lost within the Jewish community, and the Jewish community can set the example for the rest of the country."

Following the Dinner, Mr Portillo was joined at a panel discussion with David Tyler, Chairman of J Sainsbury plc; Jeremy Isaacs, founder of JRJ Group, and Dayan Isaac Berger, Dayan of the Manchester Beth Din. They were interviewed by former BBC presenter Nick Cosgrove. All the panellists agreed that the UK was facing tougher times and an uncertain economic future, and that a lack of ethics among today's business and political leaders played a large part of that.

The Dinner & Business Panel was attended by some 300 high-profile guests from the word of business, banking, law and property and was proceeded and followed by networking receptions in which guests were given the opportunity to meet and speak with the panellists one-on-one.

JABE Chief Executive Lorraine Spector said “This was a unique and interactive discussion that gave dinner guests the opportunity to meet some of the most influential figures in business and politics today and gain an in-depth and exclusive insight into the stories behind today's headlines.”