How Corrupt is Britain?

David Whyte is Professor of Socio-Legal Studies at the University of Liverpool where he researches issues related to corporate violence and corporate corruption. He is the co-editor of How Corrupt is Britain? (Pluto, 2015) and The Violence of Austerity (Pluto, 2017).

'A game-changing book. It should be read by everyone' - George Monbiot, the Guardian 'Concentrates on new forms of corruption associated with the reorganisation of the state in the neo-liberal era, detailing the new ways in which the state has been infested by private interests' - Times Literary Supplement 'An ambitious collection of essays ... which point to a contemporary malaise' - New Statesman 'Whyte deserves huge credit for bringing different aspects of the picture together into a coherent, disturbing and persuasive expose of the hypocrisy of a country that so often likes to portray itself as some sort of beacon of probity in a corrupt world' - The Tablet 'NGO Transparency International tells us that Britain is the fourteenth most corrupt out of 177 nations and Whyte demonstrates exactly how in this myth-busting work ... Many of the examples are familiar, but together they provide an unsettling narrative' - Big Issue in the North 'At last, a book that asks the right questions about corruption, and provides some fascinating and important answers. Corruption isn't what — or where — most people think it is' - Nicholas Shaxson, author of Treasure Islands: Tax Havens and the Men who Stole the World 'This excellent book should be read by everyone but particularly by those who harbour a belief that our liberal democracy protects against the worst forms of state-corporate crime' - Penny Green, Professor of Law and Globalisation, Queen Mary University of London, Director of the International State Crime Initiative 'What concerns the writers is that the public will regard corruption as unstoppable and something they can do nothing about. That each crime reported will lead to apathy, alienation and atomisation. Unite remains committed to ensuring this will not be the case' - Unite the Union - Book of the Month

Preface by Will McMahon
Acknowledgements
Introduction: A Very British Corruption - David Whyte
Part I: Neoliberalism and Corruption
1. Moving Beyond a Narrow Definition of Corruption - David Beetham
2. The New Normal: Moral Economies in the ‘Age of Fraud’ - Jörg Wiegratz
3. Neoliberalism, Politics and Institutional Corruption: Against the ‘Institutional Malaise’ - David Miller
Part II: Corruption in Policing
4. Policed by Consent? The Myth and the Betrayal - Phil Scraton
5. Hillsborough: The Long Struggle to Expose Police Corruption - Sheila Coleman
6. Justice Denied: Police Accountability and the Killing of Mark Duggan - Joanna Gilmore and Waqas Tufail
Part III: Corruption in Government and Public Institutions
7. British State Torture: From ‘Search and Try’ to ‘Hide and Lie’ - Paul O’Connor
8. The Return of the Repressed: Secrets, Lies, Denial and ‘Historical’ Institutional Child Sexual Abuse Scandals - Chris Greer and Eugene McLaughlin
9. Politics, Government and Corruption: The Case of the Private Finance Initiative - Michael Mair and Paul Jones
10. Revolving-Door Politics and Corruption - Stuart Wilks-Heeg
Part IV: Corruption in Finance and the Corporate Sector
11. On Her Majesty's Secrecy Service - John Christensen
12. Accounting for Corruption in the ‘Big Four’ Accountancy Firms - Prem Sikka
13. Corporate Theft and Impunity in Financial Services - Steve Tombs
14. High Pay and Corruption - Luke Hildyard
List of Contributors
Index