I agree that it's nothing new in a general sense, but the reason this is catching people's attention is because there is this lingering perception that there is less corruption in the UK (and in western Europe, in general) than in other places.
The corruption is of a different nature. It's difficult to compare the corruption of, say, Kim Jong Un with that of David Cameron. In North Korea, the corruption is explicit and the proceeds benefit a small group of people. In the UK, it's systemic and hard to identify who's actually doing the corruption, and who benefits, and how.
It's even harder to identify how to fix it. In North Korea, we could just say "wipe out the leaders and it will fix the problem". In the rich world, the cronies don't belong to any one family, country, or business. It's an international aristocracy consisting of 1000s of people.
