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Corruption now runs through this country like a stick of rock. https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/m7jxvn/corporations-receiving-bailout-billions-have-laid-off-staff-and-paid-investors
The government has used the pandemic to give vast amounts of money to corporations, partly through a scarcely-monitored bailout, partly through lucrative contracts for PPE to unqualified companies. https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2020/jul/15/coronavirus-contracts-government-transparency-pandemic
Meanwhile, in the midst of this corporate welfare splurge, parents can scarcely afford to feed their kids, public services are stumbling and the state's capacity is cut to the bone.
I worked in Indonesia during the Suharto dictatorship, in Brazil when Sarney and Collor were in power, and in Kenya during Moi's autocracy. So to me, this is an entirely familiar pattern.
Starve the people, starve the state, give lashings of money to your cronies.
Starve the people, starve the state, give lashings of money to your cronies.
As soon as Johnson was out of the blocks, it became clear that we would see levels of corruption in this country unprecedented in our lifetimes. But I didn't expect it to unroll so far or so fast. https://www.doubledown.news/watch/2020/30/june/george-monbiot-on-tory-corruption-robert-jenrick-richard-desmond
And all is happening before the end of the transition period, before a US trade deal, before the deregulation of the planning system, before the government has had a chance to explore the full possibilities for sleaze and graft.
Our informal constitiution is so weak, and our democracy so ragged that if Johnson wants to, he could take it all the way. As in Lebanon, we could end up in a situation where "corruption is greater than the state": in other words, subsequent govts will not be able to contain it.
People get shocked and angry when I use the word "corruption" to describe transactions in the UK. Surely that's what happens in other countries? But it has long been ingrained here. We fail to see it not because it is so small, but because it is so big. https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/roberto-saviano-britain-corrupt-mafia-hay-festival-a7054851.html
Several people have expressed disbelief about this photo. But yes, it is genuine pic of Richard Desmond, former porn king and the property developer at the centre of the Jenrick scandal, pushing Boris Johnson's swing.
While all this is going on, the government, ably assisted by the BBC and the billionaire press, tries to persuade us that the real crisis this country faces is a few hundred people arriving in small boats.
