Corruption is no longer envelopes of cash – now it is about who is being shielded and who is being sacrificed | Kenneth Mohammed

Trump has attacked judges and weakened global safeguards. Someone needs to stand up to the US and stop the erosion of democracy

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n an era of overlapping crises, corruption is no longer a side issue – it is a structural threat to achievinginternational equality and even freedom itself. Each year, Transparency International’s Corruption Perceptions Index, a league table of 182 countries, is greeted with predictable theatrics: praise where it flatters power, condemnation where it can be weaponised, and hollow promises of reform that quietly expire once attention moves on. Instead of a moment of reckoning, it is ignored by those with the power to act.

As this newspaper reported, last week’s table showed a “worrying trend” of backsliding and a picture of “democratic institutions being eroded by political donations, cash for access and state targeting of campaigners and journalists”.

Transparency International’s latest index lands at a moment of global democratic decay, and its findings are grim: more than a decade of stagnationwith most states making little or no progress against public-sector corruption. The UK slid to its lowest score since 2012.