16th November 2021
Corruption is more a political than a legal term – at least in the law of the United Kingdom.
For instance: there are no current Acts of Parliament with corruption in their title:
In criminal law there is no particular offence of corruption – but instead offences in respect of bribery and misconduct in public office.
Neither of these offences equate with corruption.
Bribery is too narrow – for taking and giving bribes is only a subset of corruption.
And misconduct in public office is too wide – for this umbrella term can cover official misbehaviour that is not necessarily corrupt.
In everyday legal practice the word corruption is now often lumped in with anti-bribery – with the acronym ABC being used to discuss any policies and laws that deal with such wrongful behaviour.
So to talk of corruption, at least in the United Kingdom, is not to speak of anything legally specific.
The word is about politics, not law.
So if you think term corruption should be used to describe the current government of the United Kingdom then it is because it is a better political (than legal) fit than any other term.
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The other common term on offer is sleaze.
This word is widely used perhaps for two reasons.
The first is because it was once an effective word.
As anyone who can remember the 1990s will know, this term once had considerable media and political purchase.
The word sleaze dominated and perhaps changed British politics.
And so perhaps those using the term are hoping that using the word similarly catches the worlds of media and politics alight again.
An attempt to re-live the 1990s.
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“I’m a firestarter, twisted firestarter.”
The Prodigy, 1996
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The second reason for the avoidance of the ‘c’ word is far less commendable.
It is the notion that corruption is what other nations do – and so the avoidance of the word is an example of British exceptionalism.
"The attempt to essentialise and exoticise 'African corruption' only serves to obscure its real roots and to sanitise the same behaviour in the West."
— #AJOpinion by @gathara 👇 https://t.co/M5ojbF5psU
— Al Jazeera English (@AJEnglish) November 16, 2021
Here I recommend the @gathara account by Patrick Gathara and his long-running threads that frame the politics of the United Kingdom, Europe and America in the same (condescending) terms that the politics of Africa are often framed by those in the United Kingdom, Europe and America.
The threads make for uncomfortable and telling reading.
#BREAKING Corrupt UK strongman, Boris Johnson, rigs appointment process for media regulator after independent interview panel declares his preferred candidate "not appointable", in attempt to control the island kingdom's press, one of the most vibrant in sub-Scandinavian Europe.
— gathara (@gathara) November 13, 2021
(I have seen these threads described as parody, but the thing is that they are not really parody, and perhaps the opposite, for this is exactly the style in which the media and politicians of United Kingdom, Europe and America routinely frame African affairs – it is a house style, not satire.)
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Corruption, as a word, means debasement.
Think of a corrupted program.
This is more than intended dishonesty – for things can be debased for various reasons.
The general and sustained assault by the British government on a range of institutions and bodies that provide checks and balances is an exercise in debasement.
There is no better word than corruption for what this government is doing to our polity.
For instance: the ultimate problem with the Owen Paterson affair was not so much the paid advocacy – for that had been identified, investigated and decided upon by the relevant committee, and so the system was ‘working’ – but the blatant attempt by the government to use its power to attack the committee and the system generally.
That was the real debasement.
The state of the United Kingdom is being corrupted.
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Politicians and the media use the words and phrases which they perceive as working in their interests.
And politicians and the media currently see the word sleazy as being expedient.
But they also, it seems, see the word corruption as not being advantageous.
Why would that be?
Perhaps is because to use that ‘c’ word would mean that we finally accept that British exceptionalism is a sham.
For the United Kingdom is a corrupted state too.
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There are different types of corruption – so a government an conveniently and legitimately say, for example, that THIS type of corruption is rather rare in our country while conveniently ignoring THAT type of corruption which is uncomfortably common.
Yuen Yuen Ang for example has an interesting classification (others are possible): “…a typology of four types of corruption divided along two dimensions. First, whether the corruption involves elites or non-elites. And second, whether the corruption involves theft or exchange. So this intersection creates, first of all, corruption with theft, which I divide into petty theft and grand theft. Petty theft would be like extortion — a police officer who just stops you and robs you of $200. Grand theft would be embezzlement. Nigeria would be a classic case, billions of dollars siphoned out of a country. And then I distinguish between two types of transactional corruption. The first is what I call speed money, which is bribes paid to low- or medium-level officials in order to overcome red tape or delays or harassment. And then I have a fourth category called access money, which is privileges paid to powerful officials, not because you want to overcome red tape, but because you want to buy special deals from them…” (source:freakonomics.com)
David, that is a powerful observation. “Sleaze” seemed to be more about the David Mellor type 90s sexual scandals. Distasteful maybe but not corruption. Used again, maybe as a smokescreen. Corruption was a label used in the 70s under Labour. We should repossess the word “Corruption” and use it to label these acts. It has shock value.
Correction
‘Sleaze’ sounds bad but not too serious, like a strip club in Soho. ‘Corruption’ sounds as though it matters, as though you might get done for it, although, as we now know, there may not be a law against it. There should be. Now following @gathara. Thank you.
I think I agree with everything you say there, except that you dismiss bribery and misconduct as incorrect.
You are right that they are too narrow and too wide, but they are both still correct.
The payments to Paterson appear to fit perfectly within the definition of bribery, and the breadth of misconduct does not suggest any grounds to not use it.
Corruption is the right word, but if we are to prosecute it, the we need to frame it in words that are established criminal definitions.
Start with bribery: how does that not fail to apply?
The only argument that I can see, and it is not one that holds water, is that it cannot be bribery because they tell us they’re doing it (except when they don’t).
If anyone is in any doubt about the corruption at the heart of the UK, consider the successive and relatively unremarked changes in UK taxation and IP law since 2010, which have now rendered the UK and in particular London as one of the world’s most significant centres for tax abuse and tax avoidance. See this piece on Tax Justice Network about the UK Spiders’ Web of deliberately tangling regulation
https://taxjustice.net/topics/the-uk-spiders-web/
And the Wikipedia article on Corporate Tax Havens
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Corporate_haven
The UK has become the global billionaire oligarchs’ puppet state.
Constitutional Law needs to become more familiar with Corporate Law??
Indeed, “sleaze” is synonymous with “squalor”, so it seems to me more a sort of moral, ethical, definition. Of course, English not being my mother tongue I may not be quite correct but that is what it sounds to me.
Corruption is definately a much better term to define behaviours, like those mentioned in the post, that ought to be sanctioned in a code of criminal law.
I believe that is precisely why journalists in the UK might prefer to refer to inappropriate behaviour as sleaze rather than corruption.
Sleaze could be used to describe behaviour that looks inappropriate without directly accusing someone of corruption – which is still the surest way to find yourself (and your employer) at the wrong end of a libel case unless you have proof.
And telling the truth is not always a good enough defence in the world of libel law.
To pick a topical example. Nobody has any proof that government ministers who recommended suppliers for the fast track process during the depths of the pandemic in 2020 benefited personally (directly or indirectly). But it sure doesn’t look good if Tory donors are awarded contracts after receiving inside information.
Rather like the old “I hint, you leak, he breaches the Official Secrets Act” joke.
Sleaze is really a mealy-mouthed nod to our libel laws.
In fact the online dictionary gives these definitions of sleaze:
” British – immoral, sordid, and corrupt behaviour or activities. “political campaigns that are long on sleaze and short on substance”
informal
North American – a sordid, corrupt, or immoral person.
plural noun: sleazes
“having failed as a leading man, he triumphs as a sleaze”
Also, while I think “corrupt” is better for your exceptionalism reason, “sleaze” has a suitably disgustingly dirty, oily quality.
“Corruption, as a word, means debasement.
Think of a corrupted program.”
Debasement of the language here! Programme in English.
Excellent content, though, much food for thought.
No, a computer program is not a programme.
It’s called “a program” exactly because that is the American spelling of “programme,” & the use of the word to describe the sets of instructions to a computer – setting out the “programme” of processes it was to follow – originated in the USA, specifically (I believe, from my brief time working for them) at IBM. Had ICL dreamt it up first, I’m sure the British spelling would be regarded as the correct one. But it didn’t, & it’s not. DAG’s usage is correct & un-debased.
Thank you for showing the baselessness of the debasement charge!
Au contraire – I think you could make a case that all of Noah Webster’s spelling reforms from 200 years or so (and various others since, such as catalog) ago are bastardised debasements of English as she is properly spelled. Analyze, center, color, defense, feces, jewelry, plow, traveler, skeptic. Ugh.
That said, even the OED recognises that the usual form for a series of coded instructions and definitions fed into a computer is “program”. One citation from The Times in 1960 (after some earlier ones) says “To prepare this sequence of instructions, or program (a spelling now adopted in computer terminology)…” but conversely another from The Times in 1971 says to “The next world chess champion could quite conceivably be a computer programme”
The first computer I programmed in 1971 was a GE115 from General Electric, subsequently taken over by Honeywell. The company I worked for then converted to ICL shortly after and at that time they used “programme”. But then their equivalent of the byte only had 6 bits and used the octal rather than hexadecimal system.
Conscience is the uncomfortable feeling someone might be watching.
With (some) respect I have to say the problem here is – err – lawyers.
The business of covering one’s tracks financially and politically speaking, of hiding evidence and making facts and transactions hard to track seems at the heart of corruption. I am sorry to say that a good part of the work of lawyers seems to be assisting this process and the burying of conscience (really deep).
Which is very fine and large for private individuals – you keep my corrupt dealings a secret or else. But government and MPs are not private individuals and it seems to me that far too much is buried under ‘commercial confidentiality’ or ‘security’ or ‘data protection’.
No, we need sunshine in large quantities lighting up the doings of every government minister and every government department. We once had some hope with Freedom of Information – but far too embarrassing, now a shadow of its former self. Bring it back, big time. If MPs don’t like close scrutiny they can buzz off and get a job – with a big legal firm probably.
The other side of the coin is the electorate needs to grow up. Uncomfortable choices have to be made and we have to deal with less than pleasant people. The childish screaming and raving and finger pointing we see across the dispatch box needs to go the way of Lego and scribble pads.
I disagree: most of the corruption that we are talking about at the moment has been happening in plain sight.
The electorate growing up won’t change politicians’ behaviour. It is the politicians who need to grow up. Unfortunately the House of Commons was deliberately designed to be confrontational, a modern debating chamber would lead to far better conduct. Anyway, the electorate is largely disinterested in PMQs (debates are generally very well behaved). Starmer is very restrained at the dispatch box, as was Corbyn. It’s the PM who shouts insults, childish jibes and untruths as his “answers”. Sadly the current Speaker rarely rebukes him for misleading of the house and his generally unruly conduct and when he does the PM ignores him.
As for Lego, I think that could lead to much more constructive behaviour in the Commons if it was made available to the honourable members. Nothing childish about it. ;)
When Boris Johnson said he believed that the UK was not remotely a corrupt country he may have been referring to the UK’s good place (11 out of 188) in Transparency International’s (TI) annual Corruption Perception Index. Yet even TI recently drew attention to mounting levels of corruption or allegations thereof during emergencies https://www.transparency.org/en/news/cpi-2020-research-analysis-why-fighting-corruption-matters-in-times-of-covid-19
I think the kind of corruption we are talking about here is this: that an individual politician (or a whole government) departs from their public duty in order to follow some alternative objective, such as personal enrichment, party advantage or whatever. So giving out peerages is exchange for contributions to party funds would be one example, as would giving out lucrative contracts to cronies or other related parties.
The essence of it is therefore that someone with a duty to make decisions for the good of the country (or however you want to frame it) knowingly disregards that duty in order to favour someone else instead. The same would apply in the private sector, where a purchasing manager who was duty-bound to be getting the best deals for his employer gave sub-optimal contracts to a relative, or to another supplier in exchange for some inducement.
One small point: the primary meaning of “corruption” is not “debasement.” It is “putrefaction,” – rotting, what happens to a corpse in the grave. From that spring all the other senses. It is a particularly powerful metaphor for the perversion or ruin of a financial or political process. Rottenness stinks. It has no place in a healthy body & if it arises in one, it spreads rapidly & taints all it touches. We call it gangrene.
In a sense, of course, that does involve debasement, but the two are not the same. One can debase flour by adding chalk or a coinage with tin. Debasement is nothing like as powerful, or damning, a visual (& olfactory) image as that of a healthy body politic vitiated by internal decay.
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Indeed. The OED give an etymology from the Latin “cor-” = together, altogether + “rumpĕre” = to break, violate, destroy.
The OED gives citations from the 14th century in the sense (1) of “putrefaction” or (4a) of moral degradation, and from the 15th century in the sense (6a) of “perversion or destruction of integrity in the discharge of public duties by bribery or favour”. The latter include an 1494/5 Act (11 Hen. VII c. 21) which appears to be a Perjury Act: “If any of the petit Jury toke … any some of money … after any suche corrupcion by the Graund Jury founden …”
For what it is worth, while there may be no UK statutory definition or offence of “corruption”, the UK Bribery Act covers behaviour that in the US would in many cases be dealt with under their Foreign Corrupt Practices Act, and in some ways goes further.
A presenter on R4 PM programme this evening in connection with the Govt’s current behaviour referred to “sleaze and corruption”.
Agree the sentiments expressed.
Interesting that the ‘establishment’ (as I and other laymen may express it) avoids the term ‘corrupt’, and instead dilutes the potential seriousness of such activity by reference to ‘misconduct’
Any abuse of any public office for self-gain (judges particularly incur my wrath) is corrupt, particularly (as almost inevitably it does) it perverts and poisons the system, and can (and usually does) do irreparable damage to decent people.
The UK judiciary protects any ‘serving’ judge from personal ramifications of his/her conduct, even if one ever got past the inevitable protectionism by the ‘system’ to prevent the accusations sticking (another layer of corruption?)
It is not by accident or error that increasingly aware members (servants?) of the UK establishment, see the system as being nothing more than self-serving.
A system controlled by the few, for the benefit of a few? (I think this used to be called a dictatorship, but the UK populous has (largely) been duped into the notion that it is a democracy)
Corruption is a very fitting word to describe a lot of what goes on in the world of the powerful.
Everyone, especially media journalists, should start using it more. It should also be forced into the legal arena as a ‘thing’ (as common parlance would have it)
Until everyone starts to ‘tell it like it is’, ‘it’ will always remain elusive and indistinct.
And who do we think that will favour?
Thank you David for drawing out the fundamental meaning of corruption. An entirely appropriate word to describe what is happening to the governance of the UK.