TI published their review of the world in 2022, and the UK falls seven places to join not so salubrious company of Qatar (-5), Myanmar (-5), Azerbaijan (-7) and Oman (-8).. This is followed by the Economist’s publication of their Democracy Index, where the UK maintains its place in the rankings which I find strange.
I last wrote about the DI in 2018, [ & on Medium ] and have further notes on Measuring Democracy on this wiki. The DI reflects the Economist’s bias and for instance has very few poverty tests, as the being poor is the biggest barrier to political inclusion. Much of the DI uses the World Values Survey which has just released its 2022 report on the UK. I need to rework my numbers. I commented on last year’s TI report on my blog where I note it is a lagging indicator and is light on private sector corruption.
Certainly 2022 was not a scandal or corruption free year although wikipedia is light on the subject, so I found the Guardian, & Wales Online. The Guardian catalogues the Downing St. wallpaper affair, partygate, and the numerous Tory MP resignations and suspensions for sexual misconduct and the article is dated June. The PM’s ethics advisor, Lord Geidt resigned, following the resignation of his predecessor over the Braverman bullying affair.
On top of this we have Cash for Honours & Cronyism. Evgeny Lebedev, the son of a Russian oligarch and a former KGB officer, was nominated and received a life peerage, and Paul Dacre, the ex-Editor of the Daily Mail was nominated after being rejected on the previous list.
We have the exposed tax affairs, Rishi Sunak and his wife who had a US Green Card and non-dom tax status respectively, and Zahawi who had to make a penalty payment to HMRC for ‘forgetting’ to declare a £27m transfer.
Let’s not forget the the now famous and illegal PPE fast lane scandal.
The controls are conventions not laws, and even when they are laws, as in partygate, the police seem reluctant to pursue Ministers.
While writing this I looked to see how scandal ridden the UK was in 2022, the wikipedia article has only the Chapman Pincher affair, the Wales Online article could easily act as the source/citation for more.