Oh my! This is about as power-punch as it’s going to get. The “current climate” is screaming for arbitrations of this kind of antidote to depurate the thoroughly soiled hoax that shambles into ever worsening positions of contortion & contempt that would probably be comical if it were not so catastrophic & cruel.
Just listen to this for god’s sakes…
“the evidence gathered here will show us that corruption is not merely a minor accidental flaw of the political and economic systems that we live in, but is actually a routine practice that is used to maintaining and extending the power of corporations, governments and public institutions. The weight of this evidence fundamentally questions the extent to which the current rulers of the United Kingdom can be trusted to make decisions that are in the public interest. The cumulative force of the chapters in this book compels us to ask: can we now say that we are entering an era of ‘turbo corruption’? at the very least, it is time we started talking openly and seriously about our own, quintessentially British, brand of Corruption”
Annnnnnd –
“The United Kingdom is institutionally corrupt, and that corruption was introduced with the aid of neoliberal theorise of economics and politics, most notably public choice theory, which seeks to reform government by opening it up to the market in order that public officials might be more easily controlled via all sorts of monetary incentives. This is in itself a major reason for the endemic institutional corruption in public institutions in the United Kingdom. As a result, the United Kingdom stands in need of a very far-reaching democratic revolution. We can call on our leaders to reform the system all we want. If we want actual change, we will have to take matters into our own hands.
SERIOUS!!! & believe me, that’s but a shred from this phenomenal collection of smouldering truth & strenuous scrutiny. The book is divided into four parts & fourteen chapters, each written by a separate journalist (sometimes two/in pairs). It’s a rampage, a glut, a cornucopia replete & heaving with an almost berserk defensive/spotlight against the omnipresent state-market corruption that some-how manages to pass itself off to many with valid legitimacy. The encyclopaedia details not just the corporate-politics elide from revolving door, lobbyist, private & public merger, deregulation & self-regulation – industry insiders/double agents, legislation reformation, toxic banking, monetary secrecy, massive scale tax evasion & exemption & many more hideous violations of government & unimaginable misconduct but also goes on to cover extensively Private Finance Initiative, Historical Child Sex Abuse (the revelations on the BBC’s initial attempt to supress & deny the Saville allegations are insane). Police Corruption in all its odious & rampant rancidity also get considerable attention in chapters Justice Denied: Police Accountability And The Killing Of Mark Duggan, Policed By Consent? The Myth And The Betrayed & Hillsborough: The Long Struggle To Expose Police Corruption. Amongst the slurry is one admission from a Metropolitan Police insider that a major four year operation into Met corruption ended with the shredding of a ‘lorry-load’ of evidence. Inveterate criminality & duplicity.
The book is sensational! It’s also overwhelming & really needs to be studied in portions (at least for me) as it all just macerates into one massive bilious cess-pool of effluvium (effectively the reality we are living under). The research, revelations & writing here are astonishing & I found amazing disclosures & information on certain issues (the BBC & their attempt to dispel the Saville scandal was particularly abhorrent & telling). It is an incredible, if not thus far unmatched source of reference on the assailing criminal paradigm that’s streaming straight out of Westminster & other ostensibly credible outlets.
An indispensable tome for the modern citizen & a geezer of strident truth & cutting-edge factual journalism on the acute putrefaction we are afflicted by. The less believable the whole spectacle becomes (& it really is beyond parody now, just pure B-movie excreta with a farce rind) the more vital this kind of writing is, like a major down-pour in a drought. As Hilary Wainwright wrote on the book – “like a hand grenade blowing apart the accumulated myths of Britain as the squeaky clean mother of democracy”. Beyond essential.
Publisher – Pluto Press www.plutopress.com
Contributing Authors – David Whyte, David Beetham, Jorg Wiegratz, David Miller, Phil Scraton, Sheila Coleman, Joanna Gilmore & Waqas Tufail, Paul O’Connor, Chris Greer & Eugene McLaughlin, Michael Mair & Paul Jones, Stuart Wilks-Heeg, John Christensen, Prem Sikka, Steve Tombs, Luke Hildyard
155 pages