Corruption? Isn’t that something that happens in poor countries, or in a fabulously wealthy international football association based in Zurich? Not according to this engrossing book, which argues that the answer to the question posed in the title is that Britain is very corrupt, bordering, in fact, on the status of bandit country.David Whyte has brought together 14 sharply written essays by a wide range of academics, commentators and campaigners, covering the vast span of corruption that erodes life in the UK. The underlying theme is that the adoption by successive governments since the election of Margaret Thatcher in 1979 of neo-liberal economic and political theories has led to the distortion and subversion of the public realm in the service of private interests. As the ­emer