There are varying degrees of corrupt and totalitarian.
We're not quite Russia bad yet, but we have however run "quick processing overnight courts" to deal with hundreds of people, thrown people in jail over Twitter jokes, kept people in jail for writing articles critical of the state, used extraordinary rendition like soap, murdered people critical of the government, shot unarmed civilians, started big wars, entertained numerous fascist dictators, operate large concentration camps to keep immigrants in, control media interests through the old boys network, force slavery on unemployed people by making them work for nothing and generally act like unsociable arseholes on the world stage.
Well, we are doing pretty well on the corruption front. I don't get the impression that we are as corrupt as Russia, but then again, we are not rebuilding from utter collapse.
In 2003 Operation Tiberius found that men suspected of being Britain’s most notorious criminals had compromised multiple agencies, including HM Revenue & Customs, the Crown Prosecution Service, the City of London Police and the Prison Service, as well as pillars of the criminal justice system including juries and the legal profession.
The strategic intelligence scoping exercise – “ratified by the most senior management” at the Met – uncovered jurors being bought off or threatened to return not-guilty verdicts; corrupt individuals working for HMRC, both in the UK and overseas; and “get out of jail free cards” being bought for £50,000.
