Once trust is lost, credibility goes..

THE erosion of trust in politicians has had devastating consequences for public life.

Revulsion at polished performers with more soundbites than principles is one of the main reasons voters turned to simplistic solutions like Brexit.

But anyone who hoped last year’s bombshell result would shake Britain’s political class out of their complacency and convince them of the need for urgent reform has been left sorely disappointed.

You only need to look at the shower of chancers that make up Theresa May’s Cabinet to know cynical game-playing is still the order of the day.

Philip Hammond and Boris Johnson’s phony show of friendship on the doorstep of Downing Street yesterday was a prime example. The whole pantomime was about as convincing as a staged dive at a Sunday league football match.

The pair – who are on opposing sides of the Brexit split – will no doubt be back at war in time for the weekend.

Labour are not immune to this type of nonsense either.

The party’s hard-left and moderate factions have been knocking lumps out of each other non-stop since Jeremy Corbyn became leader in 2015. And that division has now spread north of the Border.

The contest to replace Kezia Dugdale as Scottish Labour leader has been overshadowed by claims of “dirty tricks”.

Anas Sarwar’s camp believe acting leader Alex Rowley deliberately tried to undermine him at First Minister’s Questions yesterday.

Rowley denied the claims but the fact they were made at all shows the level of suspicion with which the camps view each other. If politicians can’t even trust each other, how do they expect us to trust them?