Put your Houses in order
Transparency International has just published its Corruption Perceptions Index (CPI) of 180 countries and it makes uncomfortable reading. The CPI ranks the 180 countries and territories around the globe by their perceived levels of public sector corruption, scoring on a scale of 0 (highly corrupt) to 100 (very clean). The UK has slipped a couple of points and now ranks 20th, alongside Austria and France. It will probably come as no surprise that Denmark ranks 1st and Somalia 180th but the fact that the UK has fallen from 18th to 20th place is a worrying trend. Given that 2024 is a massive year for elections around the globe, with four billion of the its population, in over fifty countries, due to go to the polls, it is more-than-ever important that the highest levels of probity and transparency can be evidenced to show that elections are both free and fair. Well, we can but dream. When even the world's allegedly oldest democracy, the USA, seemingly can't hold a Presidential ele