Sniff of Corruption

Despite last year's treason in Barbados, it appears that British values remain robust in the Caribbean, where the government of the British Virgin Islands has been taking a bracingly Johnsonian approach to public service. The premier has been arrested by the Americans as a suspected drug-runner, and even a UK commission of inquiry went so far as to find that successive administrations "deliberately sought to avoid good governance by not putting processes in place and where such processes are in place by passing them or ignoring them as and when they wish." Nevertheless, while thus far stopping short of imposing direct rule from the mainland, Her Majesty's Government has expressed a degree of discontentment. Since British fair play forbids any suggestion of hypocrisy, presumably London's dissatisfaction relates to failures in equitably distributing the cocaine.