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Enough of Experts? Ipsos MORI Veracity Index 2016

tCI’s Remmert Keijzer comments on Ipsos MORI’s annual Veracity Index. “2016 has been full of surprises with Donald Trump winning the US Presidential Election and the UK’s decision to leave the EU. In its annual report, Ipsos MORI tries to find out how much the public trust a spread of professions and job functions. Just a couple of weeks before the EU referendum, Michael Gove said that people in the UK have had enough of experts. It is then pretty ironic to see that it’s politicians who are bottom of the table with only 15% of the people trusting them, followed by Government Ministers (20%).

What is really worrying to see is that only 43% put their trust in Councillors, and 56% in civil servants. In the modern-day post-truth society this is disconcerting as trust is an incredibly important aspect in the relationship between the consultor and the consultee. The one not trusting the other will damage any meaningful dialogue between the two and will seriously harm any consultation and engagement exercise. I wonder what 2017 has in store for us.”

Original article:

A joint report from Mumsnet and Ipsos MORI uses this year’s Veracity Index and online focus groups of Mumsnet users to explore their opinions about trust, truthfulness, information and experts during the EU referendum campaign.

The 2016 Ipsos MORI Veracity Index, our annual index of which jobs and professionals are most trusted by the public finds that nurses are the most trusted profession in Britain, followed closely by doctors, while politicians once again bring up the rear. Public trust in politicians has slipped a considerable six percentage points since last year, and they are now trusted to tell the truth by just 15% of the British public.

  • Nurses, included in the study for the first time are trusted to tell the truth by 93%, while doctors, are trusted by 91%;
  • Government ministers are the second least trusted profession (20%), and have less credibility with the public than journalists (24%), estate agents (30% – five percentage points higher than 2015) and bankers (37%);
    women’s trust in journalists is significantly lower than men’s, with journalists being trusted by 28% of men but 21% of women;
  • There has been an increase in distrust in pollsters this year, to 42% (49% say they trust them) and there has also been rises in distrust in civil servants and business leaders.
  • At the end of a year during which we were told that the public had had enough of experts, 80% say they trust scientists. Economists, who are included in the index for the first time, come in the middle of the table, trusted by 48% – coincidentally exactly the proportion of the electorate that voted ‘Remain’. Economists are trusted more than trade union officials (43%) and bankers (37%), but less than civil servants (56%) and the ordinary man or woman in the street (65%) and hairdressers (68%).

Article originally published by Ipsos MORI

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