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It is also a pecuniarily risky tactic: the compact that is entered into is oblique, largely unspoken, entirely unwritten and uncontracted and so bereft of any guarantee of performance The donor has no legitimate comeback. Blackmail, squealing to the papers, threats and violence are self-inculpatory own-goals.Is the UK – which has till lately rather prided itself on the probity that informs the judging of dog shows, the vetting of planning applications, the award of lucrative contracts, the governance of the country – any different to other nations?Maybe it’s that we genuinely forget. Maybe it’s that we kid ourselves that each domestic instance that comes to light is atypical, while consoling ourselves with the sure knowledge that the antics of Tapie, Beregovoy, Elf-Aquitaine, the IOC, South African cricketers and countless others are manifestations of an endemic pattern. Bribery is alien.Maybe it’s that we, the audience, share the recipient’s capacity for self-delusion, and that for all the officially reviled cynicism that is supposed to afflict us, we still retain the instinct to sweep things under the carpet. We remain loath to acknowledge the truism that while power and riches may accrue in different dirty hands they can be bartered; the two currencies are covertly interchangeable.But is it a fair exchange? Were a nation’s permeability to bribery to be measured in the sums that are paid to such causes as Gannex Canine Care (Cayman Islands) and the Eric Miller Memorial Trust (Andorra) it might be concluded that Britain is clean That, however, is the wrong gauge The right gauge is the number of transactions. The fact that the sums that change hands here are lower than those which are paid in other countries ought to suggest that we are too easily bought Talk about bringing a people into disrepute.

British operatives abroad have traditionally been aware of how little they can get away with at home. The architect John Poulson tried to buy Anthony Crosland with a coffee percolator He failed. But his not-much-more-expansive largesse towards other MPs and towards civil servants was deftly judged. Their cupidity was so unambitious that they risked, and lost, their careers for free holidays.There is probably a good reason for this modesty.

Bribery is so harnessed to corruption that we fail to differentiate the two. But bribery is not a form of corruption that oils occluded enterprise in this country We have an equally effective lubricant: friendship It is friendship that is the greatest corruption. It is friendship that foments misplaced loyalty, friendship that determines patronage, friendship that leaves no troublesome financial trail. In an era of small families, friendship is God’s apology for the absence of nephews.. The idea of a Fortress Britain has become all the rage again. Twenty years ago Tony Benn and his followers were briefly fashionable on the left for proposing import controls in order to protect British producers They never managed to attract wide support. With good cause, Mr Benn was told by newspapers, the Conservatives and parts of his own party that he was not living in the real world In a global economy, Britain could not hide away.