Who's baking the cakes?

I have struggled to take a consistently serious interest in the corruption and sleaze in UK politics, largely because it seems so amateurish and small-time compared to what typically goes on here.

Perhaps Boris drew the UK a bit closer to the worthy comparison zone during the pandemic, but it was 'partygate', more a matter of wounded public sensibilities than the outright venality, which did for him in the end. 

 

Along comes Sir Keir and his Arsenal tickets, and it seems like more of the same. Though more of the same Downing Street merry-go-round is actually the least of what I anticipated back on July 5. 

 

I'm reminded a bit when the first allegations emerged about Jimmy Morales (or even our fallen local mayor Dr Vivar). Bogus breakfast bills seemed like less of a fundamental problem than the General's ruse of using the public purse to purchase private jets. 

 

Over time however, I've come to appreciate that questions like 'Who's baking the cakes?' really do matter, because a completely corrupt system can comprise a plethora of ethical conduct variants which mightn't appear especially repugnant on the individual level. 

 

The PM's attempt (while Opposition leader) to dress up a New York penthouse as his own London property during lockdown had me thinking back to some public messages broadcast by our previous mayor here (around the same time) from his plush crib in Cayalá. 

 

And I was intrigued indeed to hear how the Guardian's football podcast pundits lambasted many members of the Labour government front bench last week for accepting freebies from the Premier League. Snouts in troughs were mentioned. 

 

But the key point was that such largesse could very reasonably be associated with Labour's (earlier) stated plans to impose some sort of independent regulator — with teeth — on our national game. 

 

In the early 90s I counted among my clients several state-owned institutions, such as Post Office Counters Ltd. They had clear rules about the receipt of gifts and as far as I could tell they stuck to them. (e.g. They would not even accept a bottle of plonk at Christmas even if you backed up to their vehicle in an isolated car park.)

 

Whatever happened to the common sense notion that one ought not to accept freebies from someone who has a vested interest in one’s decision-making processes?