You think we suffer petty corruption in the UK?

Nigeria makes our sleazy politicians and local authority planning departments look like amateurs:

http://www.pbs.org/newshour/bb/how-a-cancer-of-corruption-steals-nigerian-oil-weapons-and-lives/

Well, they’re less good at hiding it. Probably because it’s systemic and in a non-democratic/autocratic country, harder for the people to actually do anything about it, so no real need to bother hiding it – those in power feel invincible. Also see Saudi Arabia, China, Russia…

But if you think the super high cost of housing in UK is from a natural ‘supply and demand’ imbalance rather than deliberately rigged supply shortage (multiple guilty parties here) and deliberately excessive amount of credit being supplied (banks, egged on by government) then you/we are being rather naive.

I remember talking to some Italians in 2010 during the MP’s expenses scandals, they were highly amused by our legislators being raked over the coals for buying big tellies on expenses and the like, very quaint apparently.

Using public funds to keep a platoon of hookers in your state apartments purely so you can ingest copious quantities of bugle off various parts of their anatomy is more the Italian way.

I’m not saying our system is perfect, but our politicians are saints in compassion to much of the world.

But if you think the super high cost of housing in UK is from a natural ‘supply and demand’ imbalance rather than deliberately rigged supply shortage (multiple guilty parties here) and deliberately excessive amount of credit being supplied (banks, egged on by government) then you/we are being rather naive.

Wow! You should get together with jivehoneyjive or whatever his name is….
On the whole the UK is relatively honest, even politicians.

Using public funds to keep a platoon of hookers in your state apartments purely so you can ingest copious quantities of bugle off various parts of their anatomy is more the Italian way.

Reminds me of allegations surrounding Culture Secretary John Whittingdale:

Bear in mind the accuser is likely to have reliable sources on such matters, here she is with George Osborne…

Whether the police visits she receives indicate corruption is a matter of opinion

As is the timing of Gideon’s gurn, the day after Natalie Rowe had released further information of his dealings with her…

Our biggest market is Nigeria. Corruption is endemic at every level, you get asked for gifts from the Police the minute you land – whole place is completely rotten and yet somehow still functions…

Which you don’t do of course…

Bribery of foreign public officials is a distinct crime under Section 6, in line with the OECD Anti-Bribery Convention.[18] A person will be guilty of this offence if they promise, offer or give a financial or other advantage to a foreign public official, either directly or through a third party, where such an advantage is not legitimately due. A foreign public official is defined, under Section 6(4), as ” an individual holding legislative, administrative or judicial posts or anyone carrying out a public function for a foreign country or the country’s public agencies or an official or agent of a public international organisation”. The inclusion of “through a third party” is intended to prevent the use of go-betweens to avoid committing a crime, although if the written law of the country of the foreign public official allows or requires the official to accept the advantage offered, no crime will be committed.[19] Unlike with general bribery offences, there is no requirement to show that the public official acted improperly as a result; this is a distinction between the Act and the Anti-Bribery Convention. The offence under Section 6 only applies to the briber, and not to the official who receives or agrees to receive such a bribe.[20]

Could that be part of the reason the serious fraud squad investigation into the Al Yamamah Arms Deal was shut down by Tony Blair, only for the documents relating to the investigation to mysteriously go missing?

The Serious Fraud Office (SFO) says it has lost thousands of documents relating to a probe into BAE Systems.

The UK agency said it lost 32,000 pages of data and 81 audio tapes linked to a bribery probe into BAE’s al-Yamamah deal with Saudi Arabia.

The investigation into the huge arms deal was discontinued in 2006 after intervention from then-Prime Minister Tony Blair.

The SFO said the lost material comprised 3% of data about the deal.

It said it lost the items when it returned more material than intended to a source in the investigation.
‘Serious matter’

The data loss took place between May and October 2012 and was discovered in May this year.

Our biggest market is Nigeria

Are you referring to UK exports?

According to OEC exports to Nigeria account for 0.57% of the total.

What were we thinking there are loads of places a lot worse than here, who knew?

What an ungrateful bunch of whiners we are we’ve never had it so good.

chestercopperpot – Member

What were we thinking there are loads of places a lot worse than here, who knew?

What an ungrateful bunch of whiners we are we’ve never had it so good.

I seem to remember that it was indeed the OP who replied just that to me when on a thread a while back when i was moaning about the apparent race towards second-world ‘democracy’ prevailing under this and previous 2 governments.

What’s wrong with a few sweeteners? 😆

Aye, true, what’s 50 BILLION between friends…

OK, that’s not all from UK, but Al Yamamah certainly worked out well for Prince Charles’ friend from his days at RAF Cranwell

Sometimes corruption goes beyond borders…

Bandar spent time at the Royal Air Force College in Cranwell in the 1960s. In 1983 he became the Saudi ambassador in Washington when Ronald Reagan was president.

Over the next two decades he was the key conduit between his family and the US government, enjoying unparalleled access to presidents and officials. It has been reported that before the US invasion of Iraq he was shown details of the war plans by George Bush – before they were seen by then US secretary of state Colin Powell.

Back home, let’s not forget Prince Andrew’s role:

Prince Andrew used his royal position to demand a special briefing from the Serious Fraud Office weeks before launching a tirade against the agency’s “idiotic” investigators at a lunch with businessmen in Kyrgyzstan.

The prince, who is also a UK trade ambassador, was briefed on the investigation into allegations of bribery by arms firm BAE at Buckingham Palace in May 2008.

Soon after, believing he was speaking in private to a group of sympathetic British businessmen, he appeared to condone bribery, and scorned the work of the SFO’s anti-corruption investigators in investigating the Saudi royal family.

But Prince Andrew’s exploits, go beyond the BAE deal:

Questions have been raised over the prince’s suitability by such issues as lunching at Buckingham Palace with a “notorious” member of the former Tunisian regime, to taking a holiday with a Libyan gun smuggler, to claims he used an official trip to try to find a buyer for his home in the UK.

And he was not unscathed by the financial scandal surrounding his ex-wife Sarah Ferguson, after she was recorded in 2010 offering to sell access to Prince Andrew to a reporter posing as a businessman.

Before his expected departure in July 2011, it said: “The duke’s unique position gives him unrivalled access to members of royal families, heads of state, government ministers and chief executives of companies”.

The role took him on expenses-paid delegations all over the world, and comments about his expenditure – including his use of helicopters – caused some newspapers to nickname him “Airmiles Andy”.

Over the years journalists have remarked on how some of Prince Andrew’s trips abroad, supposedly on government business, seemed to go via ski slopes, top golf courses and other exotic locations.

After several days of newspaper reports on the Epstein connection, Prince Andrew was hit with a further blow. Sarah Ferguson admitted having accepted £15,000 from Epstein, to help pay off her debts.

Following a story in the Daily Mail that Epstein paid the money directly to her former personal assistant, Johnny O’Sullivan, the duchess gave an interview to the London Evening Standard, in which she admitted to a “gigantic error”.

Mr O’Sullivan had been claiming £78,000 from the duchess, who was mired in debt, for unpaid wages and other bills.

Promising to repay the money received from Epstein, she added that she was “distraught” her mistake had “compounded and rebounded and also inadvertently impacted on the man I admire most in the world, the duke”.

I could go on

(and on 😉 )

Well, they’re less good at hiding it. Probably because it’s systemic and in a non-democratic/autocratic country, harder for the people to actually do anything about it, so no real need to bother hiding it – those in power feel invincible. Also see Saudi Arabia, China, Russia…

But if you think the super high cost of housing in UK is from a natural ‘supply and demand’ imbalance rather than deliberately rigged supply shortage (multiple guilty parties here) and deliberately excessive amount of credit being supplied (banks, egged on by government) then you/we are being rather naive.

Really though, the quality and cultural attitudes of the political elite do play a huge part in corruption. We are less corrupt, there is empirical data to back that up – and that is because attitudes that oppose corruption have been entrenched slowly into our culture over hundreds of years.

Newly developing/developed countries that never went through a period of slow political change, have an aristocratic elite, have upper classes that made their money very very quickly during a short period of rapid growth and then have a downtrodden poor – breed corruption. Why? You grow up surrounded by poverty, everyone is out to **** you and then when you do become wealthy you are hardened to the plight of others – they are your competitors. You end up only caring about your family and when you are poor you look to god to get you out of your mess but when you’re rich you pray to god to make yourself feel better about the cognitive dissonance that comes with that new wealth.

Oh and welcome to the Philippines, it’s more fun, apparently. Between the rampant bible bashing and shoe collecting (Imelda Marcos).

If you think Britain is corrupt, you aint never spent time in a developing country. In fact, you don’t know corruption unless you’re more scared of the police than criminals.

There is that and the fact that western governments actively manipulate (and where necessary destroy) the power structures to prevent countries from becoming too competitive:

The difference between words (from Henry Kissinger’s National Security Study Memorandum 200: Implications of Worldwide Population Growth for U.S. Security and Overseas Interests (NSSM200)
)

Thirteen countries are named in the report as particularly problematic with respect to U.S. security interests: India, Bangladesh, Pakistan, Indonesia, Thailand, the Philippines, Turkey, Nigeria, Egypt, Ethiopia, Mexico, Colombia, and Brazil. These countries are projected to create 47 percent of all world population growth.

The report advocates the promotion of education and contraception and other population control measures, stating for instance that “No country has reduced its population growth without resorting to abortion”

“The U.S. economy will require large and increasing amounts of minerals from abroad, especially from less developed countries [see National Commission on Materials Policy, Towards a National Materials Policy: Basic Data and Issues, April 1972]. That fact gives the U.S. enhanced interest in the political, economic, and social stability of the supplying countries. Wherever a lessening of population pressures through reduced birth rates can increase the prospects for such stability, population policy becomes relevant to resource supplies and to the economic interests of the United States. … The location of known reserves of higher grade ores of most minerals favors increasing dependence of all industrialized regions on imports from less developed countries. The real problems of mineral supplies lie, not in basic physical sufficiency, but in the politico-economic issues of access, terms for exploration and exploitation, and division of the benefits among producers, consumers, and host country governments” [Chapter III, “Minerals and Fuel”].

“Whether through government action, labor conflicts, sabotage, or civil disturbance, the smooth flow of needed materials will be jeopardized. Although population pressure is obviously not the only factor involved, these types of frustrations are much less likely under conditions of slow or zero population growth” [Chapter III, “Minerals and Fuel”].

“Populations with a high proportion of growth. The young people, who are in much higher proportions in many LDCs, are likely to be more volatile, unstable, prone to extremes, alienation and violence than an older population. These young people can more readily be persuaded to attack the legal institutions of the government or real property of the ‘establishment,’ ‘imperialists,’ multinational corporations, or other-often foreign-influences blamed for their troubles” [Chapter V, “Implications of Population Pressures for National Security”].

“We must take care that our activities should not give the appearance to the LDCs of an industrialized country policy directed against the LDCs. Caution must be taken that in any approaches in this field we support in the LDCs are ones we can support within this country. “Third World” leaders should be in the forefront and obtain the credit for successful programs. In this context it is important to demonstrate to LDC leaders that such family planning programs have worked and can work within a reasonable period of time.” [Chapter I, “World Demographic Trends”]

The report advises, “In these sensitive relations, however, it is important in style as well as substance to avoid the appearance of coercion.”

and actions:

can sometimes be a touch confusing…

For some reason, the story of Tiny Rowland and Lonrho has popped into my head~ it’s almost as if the colonial legacy of Cecil Rhodes never went away.

This from the excellent Adam Curtis covers it quite well:

Of course, private armies managed by the establishment can’t help a country’s stability:

There is that and the fact that western governments actively manipulate (and where necessary destroy) the power structures to prevent countries from becoming too competitive:

The difference between words (from Henry Kissinger’s National Security Study Memorandum 200: Implications of Worldwide Population Growth for U.S. Security and Overseas Interests (NSSM200)
)

You don’t think that China, Russia and Turkey get up to this stuff as well?

That’s geopolitics, not corruption.

That’s geopolitics, not corruption.

Say for example the UK and US collaboratively installed and supported a dictator in a Middle Eastern country… I dunno, somewhere like Iraq.

Throughout this time several people within and close to the governments of the UK and US profitted massively from their dealings with this dicator, both financially and geopolitically.

Then, on deciding to remove the dicator, who they had supported, even up to supplying the materials for chemical weapons and condoning their use, the same cabal network of people profitted from the removal of the dictator, throwing the country into long term disarray, violence and instability. The lead to a vicious cycle, which continued to profit the same interests who had supplied the weapons to the dictator in the 1st place.

Cushy game this geopolitics.

Spent a long time in Azerbaijan. Had to try to get a drilling licence from the ministry of emergency services….try Google. …. We have been no better out there- Look at the Lord Brown stories of how BP won the rights for oil in the caspian. Of course it has all changed now and the major oil giants are whiter than white.

And as for my time witnessing modern day slavery in Mauritania….