Nurses, teachers and police among professions more ‘trusted’ than lawyers, research reveals

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By Thomas Connelly on

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.

Read the report in full below:

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