What is evident is that the relations between ministers and mandarins are at a crisis, in the strict medical sense of that word: that is to say, they are at a point at which they will either get better, or drastically worse.

ECONOMIST: Tony Blair��s mighty servant

Consequently, the study of corruption ought to include acts that may be legal in a strict narrow sense but where the rules of the game have been bent.

FORBES: Corruption And The Global Financial Crisis

But in everything except the strict accounting sense of the word Mr Ashcroft has become a liability.

ECONOMIST: Living on his wits