Public trust in priests has fallen to an all-time low: how do other professions compare?

Public trust in priests and the clergy has reached an all-time low according to figures from Ipsos MORI's long running Veracity Index.

Just 65 per cent of the 988 polled adults said they trusted priests to tell the truth in 2017, down from 69 per cent in 2016.

This continues a long-term trend of decline in trust for the clergy in Britain with 85 per cent of the public trusting them in 1983; the first year for which there is data. It coincides with a general drop-off in church attendance figures.

Trust in the police, meanwhile, is at a record high with 74 per cent of the public saying that they generally trust the police to tell the truth.

This figure has steadily risen over the past decade, before which around 60 per cent of people in any given year said they trusted the police to tell the truth.

This increase is despite, or maybe because of, the increased number of terror attacks on UK soil in 2017 - the poll was carried out in October.

Separate polling from Ipsos earlier in the year revealed that public concern over terrorism was also at an all-time high.

Have we really had enough of experts?

Trust in scientists in 2017 equaled the previous previous high of 83 per cent from 2014. This is 20 percentage points higher than the equivalent figure from 1997, an improvement only surpassed by trust in civil servants which has increased from 36 per cent to 59 per cent over the same period.

It seems that Britain might not have had enough of experts after all, with trust in ordinary people falling from 68 per cent in 2015 to 64 per cent in 2017.

However, this was still significantly higher than trust in journalists and politicians.

Gideon Skinner, Head of political polling at Ipsos MORI, said: “Ipsos MORI has been tracking trust in professions for over 30 years, and over that time there have been some notable movers. Groups such as professors, scientists, the police, trade union officials and civil servants have become more trusted, but the clergy are the most notable losers.

"But not everything changes – doctors, nurses and teachers have consistently been near the top, and politicians and journalists down the bottom.

"Trust in journalists does show signs of improvement, but even the recent harassment scandals at Westminster seemed to make little difference to low ratings in politicians as a class – either because it has already hit a floor, or because the public felt it reflected other aspects of trust such as moral behaviour more than their ability to tell the truth. 

"Another notable finding is the difference between education levels and trust in many – but not all – professions, reflecting many other differences in views between these groups. Graduates tend to have higher levels of trust both in a range of “expert” groups such as weather forecasters, judges, civil servants and scientists, but also in journalists and the ordinary person on the street”.