Stamping out corruption in politics

Attitudes to public morality differ between cultures and times. The French conception of public life is at the same time monarchic and clerical. Leaders are supposed to be both powerful and good, hence incorruptible. If they prove to be neither, the temptation is to have a revolution or look for another supposedly great leader. There is other tradition which assumes that all men are corruptible and that it is necessary to keep them under observation and control; the authors of the American Constitution believed all powerful men, even a President, could be corrupted. It is argued that the point of constitutional checks and balances was that ambition must be made to counteraction ambition. This is not cynical, but realistic. 'If men were angels, no government would be necessary.'

Nordic government is remarkably transparent. In Sweden even Ministers' tax returns and the prime Minister's correspondence are open to citizens' inspection. Civil servants have a legal right to leak information to the press. Any kind of opulent lifestyle breeds suspicion.

Magistrates who led the clean-up campaign in 1994 were being undermined. Antonio Di Pietro, who started Operation Clean Hands, became so enraged by covert attempts to frustrate him that he tore off his black robe in court and resigned.