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Government mired in sleaze

MANY Western countries regard themselves as models of good governance, and Britain is no exception.

Abuses of state power are presented in the mainstream media as things that happen elsewhere.

Hence the spluttering outrage in the right-wing press when the United Nations sent a special rapporteur to investigate whether Iain Duncan Smith’s “welfare reforms” violated the human rights of disabled people, or the red-faced indignation whenever the European Court of Human Rights looks into a British case.

Corruption is no different.

This, our newspapers and broadcasters imply, is a “Third World” problem, one that may affect the Russians or the Chinese or the Arab kingdoms but would not be possible in our free and open society.

Unfortunately corruption in Britain is not just possible, but rampant, notwithstanding Transparency International’s bizarre decision to rate the country among the 10 cleanest on Earth when it came to “perceived public-sector corruption in 2015.”

The British political system is dominated by corporate power and politicians of all parties are beholden to it. That Parliament isn’t “clean” was amply demonstrated by the expenses scandal which rocked the Palace of Westminster in 2009.

MPs claiming public money for duck houses, heated stables and second homes was scandalously hypocritical, considering that these same people rail against “scroungers” and that an ordinary person found to have leeched tens of thousands of pounds from the taxpayer would have found themselves behind bars.

Infuriating too is the way government hardly even bothers to pretend the House of Lords is anything other than a cushy sinecure used to reward party donors.

But on the scales of British corruption this weighs little. Far more damaging is the way business interests shape the the laws of the land themselves.

The Natonal Audit Office’s latest report, listing the numbers of freebies dished out to senior officials over the last three years, does not come as a shock.

But confirmation that lobbyists for big finance and the arms trade are among those providing our rulers with the most “hospitality” cannot be ignored.

A child could see that transnational corporations do not wine and dine ministers, or send them luxury gifts, from the goodness of their hearts. They do so to induce government to act in their interests, whether or not those are the interests of the rest of us.

David Cameron himself railed against this sort of lobbying in his opposition days.

The Conservative Party leader denounced “the far-too-cosy relationship between politics, government, business and money.

“We all know how it works. The lunches, the hospitality, the quiet word in your ear, helping big business find the right way to get its way,” he said, in a speech the Tories made sure to delete from their website once in government.

Well, five years on, nothing has changed. If anything, Cameron’s administrations have been worse than any of their predecessors, notwithstanding his generous offer to hold a global anti-corruption summit later this year.

Andrew Lansley’s Health and Social Care Act, privatising vast swathes of the NHS, did not merely become law with the help of votes from 71 coalition MPs with private healthcare interests: it was actually part-written by private healthcare interests, in the form of consultancy firm McKinsey.

Lansley’s successor Jeremy Hunt, in his previous job, was exposed as so close to the News Corp empire while ruling on its bid to take over BSkyB he became known as the “minister for Murdoch.”

The revolving doors between senior ministries and the boards of private companies — whether in pharmaceuticals, arms, finance, you name it — are legion.

Every decision our ministers make is made in a cesspit of dirty money. The NAO’s findings may not be unexpected.

They should act as a call to arms nonetheless.

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