More than half of Brits trust lawyers to tell the truth

The British public is more trusting of lawyers than local councillors, NHS managers, and estate agents, new polling has shown.

In its annual poll of public attitudes to the professions, Ipsos MORI interviewed a representative quota sample of 990 adults across Britain.

More than half of Britons trust lawyers to tell the truth compared with one in four who trust estate agents, 43 per cent who trust local councillors, and 49 per cent who trust NHS managers.

After doctors and teachers, judges emerged as the third most trusted profession, with 80 per cent of those polled trusting them to tell the truth.

Only 37 per cent of the public are trusting of bankers, but it is even worse for the political elite.

Just one in five trust politicians, although this is an improvement on last year, when just 16 per cent had confidence in their ability to speak the truth.

Trust in politicians has always been low, however, and at no point since 1983 has more than a quarter of the public ever trusted the profession, said Ipsos MORI.

The lowest trust score was recorded in 2009 in the wake of the expenses scandal, when only 13 per cent said they trusted politicians.

Commenting on the findings, Bobby Duffy, director of social research at Ipsos MORI said: 'Public trust in politicians remains steadfastly low, at the very bottom of the list of professions alongside journalists, government ministers, and estate agents.

'But it's good to remind ourselves that this is not a "new crisis of trust" - from this long-running survey we can see that public trust has been an issue for politicians for at least the past 33 years.'

Surprisingly, Ipsos MORI also found that public trust in pollsters has not been affected by the polling debacle at the 2015 General Election, with 53 per cent trusting the profession this year.