Trust in UK governments suffers long decline in 16 years

Successive UK governments have suffered a long decline in public perceptions of their trustworthiness and honesty, a new study has found.

The study carried out by Professor Paul Whiteley of the University of Essex examined data from two influential pollsters – Gallup and YouGov – during the period between 1997 and 2013.

The question was: “Do you think that the government has, on balance, been honest and trustworthy, or not?”

According to the findings the British public had the least confidence in the honesty of government during former Prime Minister Tony Blair’s time in office.

Two big drops in confidence happened during Blair’s rule, one after the Bernie Ecclestone affair six months after his election, and one after the Iraq war in 2003.

The compiled data show almost 80 percent of the public believed the government had been “honest and trustworthy” when Blair was first elected.

That figure dropped to 60 percent following the change in policy on tobacco sponsorship of motor racing, which Tony Blair implemented. The
Labour party of Blair had received £1m from Ecclestone, the boss of Formula One, who had lobbied the then premier on the issue.

The public perception of Tony Blair continued to decline dramatically to around 40 percent over five years. He suffered the biggest decline to 25 percent in terms of honesty rating, when dragged Britain into the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq in March 2003.

Trends in perceptions of the government’s honesty did not change following the resignation of Tony Blair in 2007. Actually, Gordon Brown’s election to office made no difference.

The rating touched bottom, below 20 percent, at the time of the MPs’ expenses scandal under Brown in 2009.

The public confidence was boosted briefly in 2010, when the Conservative-led coalition government of Prime Minister David Cameron came to power.

It soared to above 40 percent for the first six months of the coalition government, but began to drop back to around 30 percent.

The research has been done by Prof Whiteley to identify the factors that influence trust. The figures have also been compiled from Gallup phone polls 1997-2003 and from YouGov online polls 2004-2013.