Politicians rock bottom in annual index
The general public find nurses, teachers and police officers more trustworthy than lawyers, new research has revealed.
This year’s Ipsos MORI Veracity Index — which questioned almost 1,000 people about their attitudes towards different occupations — found that just over half of respondents (54%) said they trusted lawyers to tell the truth. The eye-catching results place lawyers 13th out of 24 professions surveyed.
Trust Index 2017
The legal profession’s mid-table finish means that a raft of job roles are perceived to be more trustworthy, including doctors (91%), teachers (87%), scientists (83%), police officers (74%), clergy/priests (65%) and even the ordinary man/woman on the street (64%).
Nurses were found to be the most trustworthy (94%), while politicians were deemed to be the least (17%).
Elsewhere, judges ranked higher than lawyers on the annual index for the second year running. Racking up a trust rating of 81%, respondents viewed members of the bench to be more trustworthy than weather forecasters (76%), though less so than professors (85%).
A flurry of attacks by the right-wing press over the past 12 months make the judiciary’s 81% score particularly impressive.
At the height of Brexit-mania, the Daily Mail described three High Court judges as “ENEMIES OF THE PEOPLE” due to their ruling in the highly-publicised Article 50 case. Less than a month later, the newspaper gave the Supreme Court justices — which it called “11 unaccountable individuals” — a “Europhile rating” out of five.
Last year’s survey produced similar results with lawyers and judges posting scores of 52% and 81% respectively.