Trust must be earned by our Governments

Even casual observers of British politics will fail to be surprised that the level of trust in which the public holds political parties is falling. The country has suffered a near-unprecedented period of upheaval at the ballot box in the past half-decade, including Scottish and general elections and referendums on Scotland’s place in the United Kingdom and Britain’s place in the European Union.

Political spin and twisted statistics are nothing new and they have been increasingly supplanted by the sinister rise of “post-truth” politics and “alternative facts” – “lying”, for those who like to tell it how it is.

Of course, not all politicians are guilty of offering up halftruths and blatant bias where the public want bald facts.

But it has become all too easy for those in power to abuse their position by offering up their own version of reality and ignoring that anything which fails to confirm it.

A slogan on the side of a bus is preferable to a wellreasoned, fact-based argument and apparently we are fed up of hearing from “experts”.

As a result, fewer than a quarter of Scots have confidence in the Westminster Government.

And fewer than two thirds trust the Scottish Government, currently focused on securing a second independence referendum, to act in the country’s best interests.

It is time for those in power to do some hard thinking and plain speaking.