Distrust of politicians isn’t anything new
Another one for the ‘no things aren’t far worse than they’ve been, you just need to remember to check the past before making claims about it’ file:
Taken from Ben Seyd’s chapter in the excellent More Sex, Lies and the Ballot Box.
UPDATE: For some more detail on the longer term-trends, see the research of Will Jennings and colleagues.
It has gotten worse -> https://t.co/OgNF8sNpUH. Who wrote that chapter in SLB?
— Will Jennings (@drjennings) July 12, 2017
There is a tendency which probably operated then as now, to dislike and distrust politicians as a class far more than any sample of actual politicians the person is familiar with. Back in the 1970s I remember a poll showing very high levels of distrust of MPs in general coupled with quite positive ratings for the respondents’ actual MPs. So the problem for anyone trying to increase levels of trust is that distrust of politicians (and politics) is disconnected from or very unequally connected to actual experience of them. You can have three marvellous councillors and still think just as badly of councillors in general.