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

Corruption is no longer envelopes of cash – now it is about who Washington is shielding and who it is sacrificing Kenneth Mohammed Trump has attacked judges and weakened global safeguards. Someone needs to stand up to the US and stop the erosion of democracy I 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. Yet if this is about perception, some perceptions appear remarkably forgiving. The US slips modestly to 64, despite political upheaval and institutional strain. Israel drops two points to 62 even as it faces scrutiny over allegations of genocide and covert entanglement in other sovereign states. Reputation in global politics is sticky; power and influence tempers decline and the baseline for what counts as corruption sometimes shifts to accommodate geopolitical sympathies. But the danger lies deeper than national rankings. As geopolitical rivalry, war and climate breakdown place unprecedented strain on the western international order, the need for principled leadership has never been greater, yet...