Of 180 countries worldwide, Denmark has been found to be the least corrupt for the second year in a row, despite the oil-for-food scandal. The United Kingdom slips in at a nifty 16th. (page382)

Taking statistics from the Corruption Perception Index and a number of surveys, Transparency International ranks Denmark in the top spot, closely followed by New Zealand and Sweden.

Somalia is at the bottom of the global corruption list with a 10-point scale confidence rating of just 1.4 compared to Denmark’s 9.4. Countries such as Afghanistan, Haiti, Iraq and Burma are also seen to be extremely corrupt. Hardly any surprises there, really.

The report notes that, in securing its first place, Denmark experienced 17 foreign bribery cases in 2008, compared to 21 investigations the previous year. Some of these were part of the controversial oil-for-food program in Iraq and did not involve bribery. Earlier this year, Danish authorities confiscated about 45 million kroner from seven Danish companies that were involved in the Iraqi controversy. The United Kingdom entry devotes considerable column inches to the recent BaE and Vetco bribery scandals but concludes, although in not exactly those words, that we aren’t living Zimbabwe-style just yet.

So if the huge amounts of waste and profligacy in Government spending aren’t down to as much corruption as we suspected then it leads us to the inevitable alternative…that instead we must be led by the most incompetent and inefficient administration in history.