Is the fight against corruption in the developing world a key foreign policy priority for the British government? Or has the attention the Cameron government has been paying to this issue mostly just lip service? I’ve been mulling that question in light of two headlines that caught my eye in last week’s news:

• First, during his visit to Southeast Asia, Prime Minister Cameron has repeatedly pressed for more aggressive action against corruption, first giving a speech in Singapore in which he denounced the scourge of international corruption and unveiled new policy proposals to limit the flow of dirty money into the UK real estate and financial institutions, and then directly confronting Prime Minister Najib Razak of Malaysia about the deepening corruption scandal in the Malaysian government (a fascinating and troubling story that deserves a separate post at some point).
• Second, back in London – apparently right around the same time that PM Cameron was delivering his stern remarks about the evils of corruption to his Southeast Asian audiences – UK Business Secretary Sajid Javid invited British industry representatives to submit comments on whether the 2010 UK Bribery Act (which prohibits UK firms from bribing foreign officials) is “a problem” that has had an adverse impact on British exports.

These near-simultaneous headlines make the Cameron government look at best inept, and at worst hypocritical, on its treatment of anticorruption as a foreign policy issue. What is the British government thinking? Continue reading →