RAF Northolt’s VIP building glistened smugly with dew. Before it, beyond carefully trimmed box hedges and towering flag poles, the sleek white Hull of a Lear jet welcomed its charges. At the base of its staircase a staff sergeant saluted smartly, the creases on his trousers sharper than a blade. The entourage trod slowly up the steps. Inside, settled in the comfort of a luxuriously upholstered seat the General held forth. He was an older man, lean and fit still, his face grizzled from an active career, in his hard eyes a hint of the unpleasantness of war. The junior officers accompanying him sat attentively, arms folded, a young military assistant busy with his laptop, coordinating the onward move with an unseen colleague.

“The Church used to do it, y’know,” the General mused to nobody in particular.

“Used to be in the daily services, every bloody morning, Chaplain’s morning lessons. Drummed into us, one way or another.”

He tapped the side of his head meaningfully with a pair of straightened fingers.

“Even the duffers got it.”

He looked away, staring out across the runway as the aircraft taxied, adding, as if to himself, “Bloody good thing too, gave us all a code, something to hang on to, a structure. Christ knows what I would have done without it.”

The General’s point has never been more valid. The Church’s commandments are the basis for our common law, the foundation of our morality and a framework for our lives. Its absence these days, replaced by the intensely practical world of economic survival and success, has seen the disappearance of any form of moral guidance.

The Armed forces, by contrast, drums its values and standards into the heads of young recruits, and enforces them, issuing regular reminders of their importance. Courage. Discipline. Respect for others. Integrity. Loyalty. Selfless commitment. These are the values soldiers live by. They closely reflect what is missing from our lives, from public life, from international geopolitics.

A wannabe ambassador who allegedly misrepresents himself in his vetting process lacks integrity, and a Prince whose association with the trafficking of young women has never been satisfactorily explained displays a fundamental lack of respect for others. A President who seeks to financially advantage himself by virtue of his position lacks integrity and selfless commitment. A country that turns away from allies in need is shamefully disloyal. A Prime Minister who disobeys rules he has imposed on others during a national emergency lacks discipline and integrity and a police force deployed for political purposes that conducts the killing of an innocent civilian is a cowardly misuse of an ill-disciplined force, lacking in basic integrity and respect for human life.

And when such men and women lie and cheat to escape punishment for their misdemeanours they demonstrate a profound lack of courage.

It is the absence of such basic values and standards, all too often obscured beneath the titillating detail of individual misdemeanours, that hollows out our democratic system, undermines our security and our happiness. It is the underlying cause of the sinister new direction of modern geopolitics and the cause of much of the suffering in the world.

We must call these out, and use the opportunity to remind ourselves of their importance. For they are all that separate us from evil.