The UK has no overarching anti-corruption authority with sufficient resources to act to prevent corruption and track down the corrupt and criminal.
Corruption, money laundering and related economic crimes are massive in scale and endemic in the UK. They distort the operation of markets to the disadvantage of those honest businesses and consumers that play by the rules. At the end of the day, it is the ordinary citizen who has to pay the price.
Another form of financial wrongdoing is unethical behaviour. The scale of such behaviour has been growing in the last 20 years and became particularly evident following the financial crash of 2008.
There is much evidence that in recent years people have been losing trust in political and financial institutions. It is not possible to put a price on ethics, but that does not make it any less valuable. It is the law-abiding citizens who are doing most to protect our democratic system, and it is for them that we must tackle the corruption in our midst.
The Westminster Government has a track record of being unwilling or very slow to react against agents of corruption within the UK. Lest it be thought that bad behaviour is the preserve of traditional types of organised criminals, in the UK there are major culprits within the UK’s established financial sector.