Visiting academic to discuss corruption in Britain

Visiting academic to discuss corruption in Britain

Corruption is often something people consider happens only in developing countries, but that’s not the case according to a new book.

Professor David Whyte of the University of Liverpool has recently edited How Corrupt is Britain?

Professor Whyte is in Auckland next week to speak at the University of Auckland on the routine corruption that appears to be rife in some of Britain’s most venerated institutions.

Both the talk and his book analyse to what extent Britain is corrupt and examine banks accused of rate-fixing, Members of Parliament cooking the books, major defence contractors investigated over suspect arms deals, and Police accused of being paid off by tabloids.

Professor Whyte opens the book stating that “the idea that British institutions are fair and democratic is one of the foundation stones of our self-imagined national heritage”.

He then asserts that corruption in Britain is “actually routine practice that is used for maintaining and extending the power of corporations, government and public institutions.”

Professor Whyte is a professor of Socio-Legal Studies at the University of Liverpool. He is an internationally established author on the subjects of state power and corporate power.

His other recent publications are The Corporate Criminal (with Steve Tombs, Routledge, 2015), The Mythology of Business (Institute of Employment Rights, 2015), Counter Terrorism and State Political Violence (Routledge, 2012, co-edited with Professor Scott Poynting) and Crimes of the Powerful (2009, Open University Press).

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