Corruption now threatens one of the oldest and most established democratic nations. In a 2024 poll, two-thirds of Britons said politics is becoming more corrupt (here), and in 2025 nearly 9 in 10 expressed concerns about potential corruption among politicians (here). Over the past year 16% reported being asked for a bribe, and 11% were asked to facilitate money laundering (here).

U.K. anticorruption fighters are taking heed. None more than Robert Barrington. In Corrupted Kingdom, out July 16 (preorder here), the former Transparency International U.K. head and Chair of T.I. International’s Council chronicles the ways corruption has begun to infect venerable U.K. institutions: from the Monarchy, where the now deflowered Prince Andrew’s flacked for a Kazakh oligarch in return for £ 3 million to Parliament, where MPs are secretly paid to question Ministers and seats in the House of Lords are on offer for hefty campaign contributions, to Scotland Yard, local governments, businesses small and large.

It is even seeping into the academy. Currently Professor of Anti-Corruption Practice at Sussex University’s Centre for the Study of Corruption, Barrington argues that the growing willingness of universities to accept dark money compromises their independence and their integrity.

British and non-British readers will both find much to recommend in the pages of Corrupted Kingdom.

British readers are likely to be most interested in the reforms Barrington advances, from beefing up “dull sounding” but important accountability institutions such as the Auditor General for Wales and the Northern Ireland Audit Office to teasing out whether the U.K. should create a formal, institutional structure, even an independent anticorruption agency, to replace the current arrangement, a patronage position in the PM’s office whose occupant has no official status and whose advice is easily, and often, ignored.

Citizens of other liberal democracies will find (reassuringly or depressingly) that theirs is not the only country where abuses stemming from large donations to political parties orchestrated by lobbyists is a front-page problem. Americans may take some solace from learning that Boris Johnson’s short-lived reign as PM approached Trumpian-levels of corruption.