Ben Chu has it absolutely right when he says; “elite play by a different set of rules than the rest of us“. He is referring to the Serious Fraud Office (SFO) use of its latest toy, the Deferred Prosecution Agreement (DPA). By “Deferred” we mean, of course, “never going to happen”.
It is another example of the one-sided bets that those in positions of authority are able to place. They can commit criminal acts for their own personal gain, in the knowledge that they will not be prosecuted. These are acts that you and I, mere ordinary citizens would certainly be prosecuted for. You and I do not have the protection of the crony corporatist oligarchy that runs the UK.
Ben Chu is highlighting the DPA’s recently agreed by the SFO with Tesco (false accounting) and Rolls Royce (bribery), both on a jaw dropping scale. No executives are to be prosecuted. But he might have mentioned many others; MP’s expenses (theft/fraud), Mid-Staffs NHS trust (death), Banks (money laundering, PPI miss-selling, exchange rate fixing, wanton mis-management . . .).
Is it any different in New Zealand. Well . . . Yes. There is no history here of people in power here making one-sided bets for personal gain. There are some bad decisions, such as the recently opened NZ$630m Kapiti Expressway which is actually extending commuting times due to the bottleneck created where it joins SH1! However, there is no claims that anything criminal has gone on.
Maybe this is why, with national elections due later this year, there is no sign of the New Zealand electorate expressing the kind of views that gave us Brexit and Trump.