British Achievements: Corruption

David Cameron had his conference in London to call everyone else grime bums and show that Britain's is clean and pristine.He's right only if corruption is interpreted only as bribery because our politicians aren't worth buying.We only bribe to get contracts with Saudi Arabia or lesser breeds without the scruples.But we're one of the most corrupt nations when it comes to fiddles and influence.

A country where party donors can buy seat in the legislature in the Lords is in no position to call anyone else grimy behind. Lesser donors get posts in the health service, education or quangos.  The government was going to abolish quangos but has now decided it's better to fill them with Tories.

Is it corrupt for public servants to take jobs with companies and organisations they've been regulating? Do they soft peddle the regulation to get the job? Is it corrupt for the big four accountancy houses to sell tax avoidance schemes? Or for areas which vote Tory to get better expenditure deals, or for HMRC to give big corporations  an easier tax ride that small businesses?

Is it corrupt for a government to consolidate itself in power by extending the term of parliament, reducing the number of MPs to increase the proportion of Tories, to purge the register so the poor,the transient and the students are deprived of votes and to hit the funds of the opposition by reducing trade union spending but doing nothing about the huge business spending that comes to it?

Is it corrupt to permeate government departments and particularly HMRC with senior personnel from the groups they're supposed to regulate, to give big contracts to the accountancy houses and others who contribute to the Tory Party, to refuse to do anything about the crown dependancies over which they have control providing all the fiddles associated with tax havens or to set out to encourage funny money,drug money and corrupt money from developing countries by lax regulation and opens up everything for sale to foreign interests.How about the long delays in dealing with abuses,from police lies to company fraud? That's surely corrupt but it happens all the time when regulators are permeated and controlled by the regulators.

Perhaps the Tax Justice group or the Labour party should hold its own conference on home grown corruption to show that Britain Can still lead the world in something.