Trust in Britain’s system of government is at a record low and the relationship between politicians and the public feels increasingly fragile. Some 45% of the public ‘almost never’ trust governments of any party to put the nation’s interests above their party’s, while 58% ‘almost never’ trust politicians to tell the truth when they are in a tight corner.
This lack of political trust threatens to thwart the government’s ambitions for a “decade of national renewal” but also weaken the very functioning of our democracy. In this context, this report sets out to better understand the current state of political trust among the public, to diagnose what is going wrong, and to develop a playbook to rebuild political trust.
Trustwatch 2024 is a research project that Demos ran throughout the course of the recent general election campaign – when politics is most in the public’s consciousness. At the centre of the project is our Trustwatch panel, comprised of 32 members of the public from a wide range of socio-economic backgrounds, ethnic groups, ages, political perspectives, and parts of the UK.
Before, during and after the election campaign, we asked our panellists about their experiences of what builds and damages their political trust, and asked for their thoughts on key moments in the election campaign as they happened. These rich insights, along with original polling, engagement with secondary literature, and conversations with research and policy experts, have helped us diagnose six key drivers of low trust and build a series of strategies and recommendations that present a better way forward.
In this report, we argue that the government’s current response to low trust is far too narrow to build the broader, more resilient form of political trust it needs to command the confidence of the public and safeguard the future of our democracy. Its current areas of focus – to build trust by delivering on its promises and improving integrity in office – are both key to this ambition but they cannot alone address the deep-rooted concerns the public have about how our political system is set-up and operates. In this report, we present an alternative way forward – a wider, more comprehensive playbook for building political trust.