Yvonne Roberts: The Edwina in you and me

Transgression is back at the top of the bill. Self-deluded Edwina Currie continues to flog infidelity and betrayal as if she is a one-woman salvage firm, assisting the body politic and safeguarding truth. ("It did a lot of good to encourage this Brixton boy to go for the PM job...") Meanwhile, in Blackpool last week, the Labour Party idolised a lying, cheating, philandering Bill Clinton who found a hundred ways to exploit his office while bombing in the name of peace. Gosh, what audiences won't forgive when a performer is so good at, well, being bad.

It hasn't stopped there. Avarice (is anyone worth £80m?); political fiddling (100,000 students affected by exam chaos) and hypocrisy in bucket loads as Conservative Casanovas have queued to label Mrs Currie "a cheap trollop", displaying considerable envy at the vast size of her book advance.

In the 1990s, the right-wing American historian Gertrude Himmelfarb wrote The Demoralization of Society From Victorian Virtues to Modern Values in which she argued that "values" have become so relative and subjective as to be almost meaningless. In contrast, she believes the much-maligned Victorians had a clear consensus on what constituted "virtues" – aspiring to respectability, self-help, discipline, cleanliness, obedience and orderliness, however far short of those standards they came in reality. Rich or poor, it mattered that you were judged to be of "good character" (with women paying the much higher price, then as now, for failing).

Church, family, the power of public censure, all contributed, for better or for worse, to the creation of a society moulded by moral absolutes. Now, in this more secular, individual age, we have fewer incentives for sticking to the straight and narrow – and greater opportunities and more refined arguments for bending the rules. But how morally "rotten" does that make us?

Vince Mitchell, professor of marketing at the University of Manchester Institute of Science and Technology, provides us with some insights in his new study on personal morality. It asks if we are a nation of shop cheaters. The answer is yes – on a grand scale. We nick the office stationery, keep incorrect change and make off with hotel towels. Downloading music and material from the internet, for instance, amounts to international piracy costing £3bn in revenue annually.

"Guilt-neutralisation techniques" include the arguments that there's no real victim, no injury and, most significant of all, the multinational corporations deserve it because they, in turn, are ripping us off massively.

A survey of ethics in the corporate world, conducted last year by Management Today magazine, revealed similar patterns of ambivalence, with women transgressing most.

For instance, 35 per cent of men said they would report fraud but only 25 per cent of women.

"Social mobility, increasing fragmentation, the distancing of business, all increases a sense of disconnectedness," Mr Mitchell points out. "The corner shop is likely to be a Sainsbury's Local, not run by somebody we know. Shame in the community, the impact on family, has become far less potent."

The little we know about patterns of adultery also reinforces the notion that a bit on the side is more likely away from home. One survey indicates that it's high-earning men and working women who travel who are most likely to be felled by temptation.

So, are we all sliding fast towards Sodom and Gomorrah? Perhaps not. Moral absolutism may yet be replaced by personal pragmatism. Divorce fever is slowly being replaced by an appreciation of the perks that come from longevity in a relationship, inside or outside marriage – better health, better material resources, better outcomes for children, and happiness for some.

Self-interest, if not religious motivation or the power of the collective, may yet encourage us to temper our vices – but who is going to tackle the absence of "virtue" among those at the top? The news that senior executives' pay rose at six times the national average last year or that George Bush, with Tony Blair's blessing, may unilaterally attack Iraq, hardly feeds into the idea of a fair and just society. Why should the telephonist worry about making a few personal calls when the bosses are skimming off millions?

Connectedness with those against whom we transgress has always been a brake on bad behaviour, and it's fraying fast in modern times. But, hey, Edwina, it makes for wicked reading.