Corruption is a word used nervously in the UK. We’re quite happy applying it to other countries; but in Britain even critics of the status quo can be surprisingly reluctant to describe as corrupt our society’s tight, often concealed circulation of power and rewards.
Partly, this is because corruption is a slippery concept. “There has never been a single, fixed, universal definition,” wrote Mark Knights of Warwick University in 2016. “Notions about what is unfair, unjust or immoral change over time.”
As a small, centralised country with a huge capital city, Britain has for centuries been run by elites with overlapping memberships and interests, and offered a wide range of services to foreigners with dubious fortunes. To attack this system as corrupt is to risk being called unworldly – and experience feelings of deep frustration and futility. From the House of Lords to the City of London, the capital is lined with ancient institutions that anti-corruption campaigners have failed to cleanse.
Yet there are periods when the charge of corruption suddenly acquires potency. Having struggled for two years to find an effective way of criticising Boris Johnson’s government, Labour seems finally to have discovered one. “Corruption,” said the party’s deputy leader, Angela Rayner, on Monday, “is rife right through this Conservative government.” Keir Starmer, often too measured, has become just as blunt about the issue. » | Andy Beckett | Friday, December 3, 2021
