A majority of voters believe that Rishi Sunak’s government is “institutionally corrupt”, new polling released by Byline Times has revealed.
The UK achieved its worst-ever level in Transparency International’s Global Corruption Perceptions Index earlier this year, with only four other countries – Qatar, Myanmar, Azerbaijan and Oman – seeing their rankings decline by as much.
Sunak’s Government was also criticised by an international body for failing to implement required anti-corruption measures.
The Council of Europe’s Group of States against Corruption (GRECO) which the UK is a member of, said in a report last week that the UK was “not in sufficient compliance” with all of its recommendations after it failed to fully implement a series of measures designed to tackle corruption in its Government and policing bodies.
The prime minister promised to lead a government based on “integrity” and “accountability” when he was first elected.
However, according to new polling 53 per cent of voters told Omnisis that they agreed with the statement that the UK Government is now ‘institutionally corrupt’, with just 15 per cent disagreeing.
The poll also found that most voters believe that corruption in Government has gotten worse in the UK over recent years.
Fifty-seven per cent said they believed the level of corruption in Government had increased in their lifetime, with only seven per cent saying it had decreased instead.
Earlier this year, Carol Vorderman pointed to the raft of crony contracts handed out during the Covid-19 pandemic through so-called ‘VIP lanes’ as evidence of Tory corruption.
Campaign group Transparency International found that a fifth of UK government contracts awarded to respond to the Covid-19 pandemic last year contained red flag indicators of possible corruption.
They identified 73 “questionable contracts” worth more than £3.7 billion in total that warranted further investigation. Most of these (65), worth £2.9 billion, were for personal protective equipment.
“Never, ever in my lifetime have I seen what is patently a corrupt government like this one”, Vorderman said, adding that it is astonishing that there haven’t been more media headlines about it.
“They are taking from the poor and they are giving to the already rich.”
Related: Tory MPs submitting letters of no confidence in Sunak
