While Liz Truss warns that democracy is under attack, a new report shows the extent of the UK’s ‘kleptocracy problem’
You may not have noticed, owing to all the noise about the party-that-wasn’t, but on Wednesday the foreign secretary, Liz Truss – a potential successor to Boris Johnson should he ever, heaven forfend, lose the confidence of the Tory Party – warned us all about the future of the world.
Democrats were losing ground, she said, in a speech at the Chatham House thinktank in London. Those who believed in freedom must stand up and be counted if they were to ensure “democracies don’t just survive, they thrive”. In this, she is right: democracy is under attack everywhere, with kleptocrats such as Vladimir Putin amassing ever more wealth, power and influence while western governments squabble over things such as inshore fishing rights.
Oliver Bullough is the author of Moneyland: Why Thieves and Crooks Now Rule the World and How to Take It Back
