WHO WE TRUST
The proportion of people that trusts each profession to tell the truth
FEWER than one in five people trust politicians to tell the truth.
A damning report into the British public's trust of professions revealed that just 19 per cent of the public say they trust those running the country to tell the truth.
Only advertising executives had a worse trust rating, at just 16 per cent.
At the top of the leaderboard of trusted professionals were nurses, with 96 per cent of the public saying they believed those in the job would tell the truth.
That was higher than doctors (92 per cent), teachers (89 per cent) and engineers (87 per cent).
Interestingly just 76 per cent of the public felt they could trust police to tell the truth - a rate lower than members of the armed forces (78 per cent) and judges (83 per cent).
Faith in priests has massively fallen since 1983, when they were the most trusted profession.
Now, just 62 per cent of the public trusts them.
The fall in trust can be at least partly explained by the prolific number of sexual abuse cases that have come to light in recent years.
Charity chief executives are trusted by less than half of the public (48 per cent), though the rate still remains higher than for trade union officials (45 per cent) and bankers (41 per cent). Some 11 of the 24 professions included in the survey were trusted less than an ordinary man or woman in the street (62 per cent). Interestingly, journalists were trusted by just 26 per cent of people to tell the truth - lower than the proportion that would trust estate agents to do the same (30 per cent). However, if you're doubting these figures, we've not pulled them out of thin air - they come from polling group Ipsos Mori.
Trust in politicians is of particular significance at this point in time.
The “Brexit Justice” campaign has hired barristers in an attempt to prosecute the former foreign secretary Boris Johnson's claim that Britain pays the EU £350m a week.
The infamous phrase was emblazoned on the side of a bus during the Brexit referendum campaign.
Mr Johnson had previously been warned by the UK's official statistics watchdog that the figure was a “misuse of public statistics”. Private prosecutor Marcus Ball said he had notified Mr Johnson of his intention to bring a court case, according to the New European.
He said: “This is about stopping lying in politics; this is not about stopping Brexit, the courts do not have the power to do that.
“We do need to stop politicians from lying in any future referendums though.
“The motivation for this prosecution is a desire to bring a beginning to the end of lying in politics.”