Boris Johnson’s rule is a throwback to the 18th-century golden age of sleaze | Andy Beckett

This prime minister is a reminder of an era when government jobs were sold and political leverage was bought with cash

Corruption is a word used nervously in the UK. We’re quite happy applying it to other countries; but in Britain even critics of the status quo can be surprisingly reluctant to describe as corrupt our society’s tight, often concealed circulation of power and rewards.

Partly, this is because corruption is a slippery concept. “There has never been a single, fixed, universal definition,” wrote Mark Knights of Warwick University in 2016. “Notions about what is unfair, unjust or immoral change over time.”

Andy Beckett is a Guardian columnist

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