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Trust in Government

ended 13. July 2022

At 10am today, an official report was published: Trust in Government UK 2022. The main points were:

  • 35% of the UK population stated that they trusted the national government, which is lower than the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) average (41%).
  • 42% of the population reported that they trusted local government and 55% trusted the Civil Service.
  • Trust in public services was higher than trust in the national or local governments, with the NHS the most trusted public service (80%), followed by the courts and legal system (68%).
  • 75% of the population believed that the UK government should place a higher priority on creating conditions for businesses to thrive, 64% said they should place higher priority on reducing climate change and 54% believe they should place higher priority on reducing the national debt.

We asked small business owners three questions:

  • Do you trust the current Government?
  • What are your views on politicians and the UK political system as a whole?
  • What do you think of public services in this country?

16 responses from the Newspage community

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Dr Anika Walia
Founder at Doctor A Cosmetics
I do trust the current government but it isn't easy. Controversies such as Partygate and the Chris Pincher case have shown the British government in a very poor light. Lawmakers cannot be lawbreakers. I think politicians and the UK political system as a whole have to work a lot harder to gain the trust of the British public and to prove that they can lead with integrity.
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Kusal Ariyawansa
CFP at Appleton Gerrard
Our once globally admired political establishment and Parliament is now a laughing stock, shocking many abroad. My trust in the current Government is such that if Boris says 2 + 2 is 4, I'd have to get my calculator out just to be sure.
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Sara Porter
Owner at Sara Porter Photography
Do I have trust in the Government? Yes, I have complete and utter trust in the current Government to continue making poor decisions on a regular basis.
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Esme Marshwitch
Owner at The Glassy Witch
This government in particular has shown utter disregard for the law, and contempt for the people of this nation and the wider international community. Where once, politicians who lied would at least have the decency to resign, these ones change the definition of lying to avoid doing so. I do not think I will ever be able to trust an institution that allows such reprehensible behaviour to continue, and I am sad to note that the current FPTP system emboldens this sort of thing. We need proportional representation. We've tried everything else. It can't get any worse.
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Stewart Morton-Collings
Owner at For Me and For You Designs Ltd
I have no trust in the current administration. They've shown themselves to be corrupt, incompetent and solely interested in furthering their own nefarious aims and causes. Why anyone ever trusts the Conservatives is completely beyond me. I feel like the entire political system needs a complete overhaul. Proportional representation is going to have to be brought in at some point to break up the monopoly that the Eton and Oxbridge set have over the governance of the UK. It's sickening that people such as Johnson and Rees-Mogg have been allowed into Government in the first place. These are people who have shown complete contempt for the British population, yet feel they are somehow destined to rule this country. We need to see more powers given to the regions to better enable them to solve the many varied issues that they face. I do believe that there are some excellent politicians who have shown that they are interested in trying to better this country. Angela Rayner and Zara Sulatana both seem to be incredibly principled and driven and I really respect that. Unfortunately there is a lot of sleaze in the House of Commons, as has been shown repeatedly over the past two years. Meanwhile, the UK's public services do an incredible job in the most difficult of circumstances. Completely underfunded and always at the coal face of UK opinion. With the right investment, our public infrastructure could be incredible, but the Government have failed it completely for the past 12 years. The most disappointing aspect of the past 12 years is that the UK could be leading the way in healthcare, education and environmental issues, yet we've been hamstrung by an elitist government unable to do anything other than help itself. I just hope that this current low period of politics and democracy will lead on to something much more positive for my children and grandchildren.
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Lewis Shaw
Owner and Mortgage Expert at Shaw Financial Services
How can anyone trust our current government after Partygate and all the other controversies of the past two to three years? How can anyone with a scintilla of intelligence and gumption have anything but disdain for the people 'leading' this country? We need wholesale electoral reform, to scrap first past the post and replace it with proportional representation, overhaul standards for MPs, and have a written constitution to prevent anyone, ever again, having the ability to ride roughshod over precedents as we've seen. We've had 12 years of Tory rule. We currently have an NHS in crisis, the highest tax burden since the 1950s, inflation the worst since 1970, people unable to get passports and driving licences, and lower homeownership rates now than when the Tories came to power. We're now outside the largest trading bloc on the planet while jeopardising the Belfast Agreement. The most damning fact, however, is this; in 2010, there were just below 41,000 food bank users, and that figure is now over 2,100,000. Other than that, we're in fine shape.
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Imran Hussain
Director at Harmony Financial Services
I think any trust most people had in this Government went out the window ages ago. It's total anarchy right now. The whole country is in a mess and the leadership an omnishambles. The next Prime Minister and Government will have a massive job to rebuild any trust with the common working person.
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Samuel Mather-Holgate
Independent Financial Advisor at Mather and Murray Financial
After a Johnson-led Government, I’m surprised there is any trust at all left in this government. Politicians get a bad wrap. It’s a thankless job. But they make it easy for us to distrust them. The current one has an unusually large amount of ‘bad apples’. I do feel, on the whole, the majority of politicians want to do a good job. The British political system is very confrontational and doesn’t have a lot of room for collaboration and compromise, like our European friends. Maybe we could learn something from them. In general, public services need a lot of reform. The idea of them is great, but there is so much waste in bureaucracy and mismanagement. I don’t know of anyone, personally, who has had a fantastic experience of public services over the past 10 years.
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Dr Marianne Trent
Clinical Psychologist at Good Thinking Psychological Services
To be honest it feels like no-one is particularly trustworthy at the moment. Even having speech writers heavily cultivate politicians' words means we can't ever be sure that what comes out of their mouths are their own thoughts. I feel like I'm waiting for our 'Obama equivalent', someone straight-talking, trustworthy and compassionate. Now that would really make me stand up and take notice.
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Graham Cox
Founder at Self-Employed Mortgage Hub
Thanks in large part to the shenanigans at No 10, trust in politicians and the political system has never been lower in my opinion. But it's not just the political system that needs to change. The education system, local government, law enforcement and judiciary are all failing the people of this country. The Telford child abuse scandal, bias and corruption in the Met police, and the terrible injustice of Hillsborough are just three examples that shine a light on the scale of the problem. We need a radical overhaul of all these institutions. A written constitution and greater protection for whistleblowers would be a good start.
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Cheney Hamilton
CEO at The Find Your Flex Group
I don't think many people support the current Government, nor a future Tory one. I think Boris and his cronies have caused huge damage to this country's once great institutions, which have left public services in tatters and greatly privatised. They have highlighted that party politics is a broken system and that people who hold office have to hold themselves to a higher standard. We need role models, our children need roles models. Our politicians and their politics must do better.
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Debbie Porter
Managing Director at Destination Digital Marketing
The Conservative party doesn’t even trust this current Government, so how can there possibly be anybody left in the general public that could feel confident in being led by such a bunch of corrupt and shamelessly dishonest individuals? All parties in the UK political system operate on a short-termist basis, pledging the moon on a stick to get elected, but delivering nothing that takes more than four years because the benefit of such programs might not end up benefiting the incumbent party. If politicians were to pay more than just lip service to bipartisanship, we might be able to pull forwards as a country that is united.
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Karen Watkins
Founder at Rowan Consulting
If the UK government were a normal commercial business in the UK right now, its directors would have been struck off, its employees sacked and the company shut down for good. 'How are they still here?' is a question I continually ask myself.
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Amanda Rutland
Artist at Gorgeous Gourds
I don't see how we can trust any politician to be honest. They break the rules they make up, they think they're entitled with silver spoons in their mouths. Those running for the next PM are so far removed from reality it's farcical. It's time for radical change in this country.
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Ian Hewett
Founder at The Bearded Mortgage Broker
Leaders have to set examples. So if you repeatedly mislead, manipulate and lie, then generally the people you manage will follow that example, as behaviour breeds behaviour. Imagine how high your standards must be to lead a country. Sadly, Boris, time and again, has shown he is incapable of leadership.
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Rachel Mills
Founder and Director at Buttercup Learning
I don't trust the current Government. The fact so few of them went to the recent climate science briefing shows they aren't focused on the issues that matter. I'm with the 27 percent who responded that they are not at all confident that the UK will succeed in reducing greenhouse gas emissions in the next 10 years. We need politicians that are honest and represent both the people and the planet.