Trust in the institutions of public life has taken a beating after years of scandal in UK politics. From MPs’ lobbying to corruption allegations concerning the government’s response to the pandemic – and, of course, the ‘partygate’ affair that implicated figures at the very heart of government during that crisis.

As Ipsos polling commissioned specially for this report shows, there is a sense among the public that people in power do not feel bound by the same rules as them. Two thirds of respondents said that they do not think the current government behaves according to high ethical standards (65%); approaching half believed standards of behaviour had got worse since the 2019 general election (45%).

The general election that will take place this year offers both the main parties a chance to reset these perceptions. They should take it. But this needn’t wait till the morning after the vote: both can set out from now how they plan to fix the situation should they enter No.10.

Over the past half-decade, and particularly (though not exclusively) during the premiership of Boris Johnson, UK government has been beset by a torrent of scandals in which the ethics and judgment of senior ministers and their closest teams have been found severely wanting. Johnson was himself the focus of many of these, from his use of a Conservative donor’s funding to refurbish the Downing Street flat, to the parties held in it and No.10 while the rest of the country was in lockdown, and finally to his support for Chris Pincher, the former deputy chief whip accused of sexual harassment – the event that proved the final straw for Johnson’s MPs, who ultimately prompted Johnson’s resignation and a leadership contest and in July 2022.

Another former prime minister also made the headlines in this period, in this case for their behaviour after leaving office. David Cameron was found to have repeatedly lobbied government figures, including the then chancellor Rishi Sunak, on behalf of a since-collapsed finance firm, Greensill Capital, whom he was employed by two years after leaving office. No rules were technically broken, but the Treasury Select Committee issued a scathing report on the affair in 2021, criticising the former prime minister’s “significant lack of judgment”. David, now Lord, Cameron was made foreign secretary by Rishi Sunak in 2023.

Despite entering No.10 amid promises of integrity, Sunak too has found himself at the head of a government marred by ministerial scandals. Among other examples, his party chair, Nadhim Zahawi, and deputy prime minister, Dominic Raab, were both forced to step down in the first year of Sunak’s premiership due to tax irregularities and bullying respectively (though Sunak took a different approach to his predecessor but one in not fighting to keep these ministers in his government).

The context – and result – of this era of scandal in politics

This period of regular scandals is one in which the UK has faced sustained constitutional and political instability – with the Brexit vote, frequent changes of prime minister and myriad other crises undermining the UK’s reputation at home and abroad. In the 2023 Transparency International Corruption Perceptions Index, the UK had fallen to 20th in the world, down from 18th a year before, and 11th in 2021, with Transparency International noting last year that the UK had seen “a string of political ‘sleaze’ and public spending scandals”. ³⁴ Transparency International, ‘9 countries to watch on the 2022 Corruption Perceptions Index’, blog, 14 February 2023, www.transparency.org/en/blog/cpi-2022-corruption-watch-list-united-kingdom-sri-lanka-georgia-ukraine

The result is the UK public losing faith in politicians. There is a widespread sense that people in positions of power do not believe the usual rules apply to them, or that UK government more generally is not working for the benefit of the public. The Ipsos Veracity Index 2023 found that as little as 10% of the public trusts government ministers to tell the truth, and only 9% trust politicians in general to do the same. Polling commissioned by Spotlight on Corruption found that 71% of people do not trust politicians to police the rules governing their own behaviour.

Institute for Government/Ipsos polling, February 2024

The IfG commissioned Ipsos to carry out some polling when researching this report.* This was done over the weekend of 16–19 February 2024, and the key findings are found below:

• 65% – do not think the current government behaves to high ethical standards
• 45% – think standards of behaviour in government have got worse
  since the election in 2019
• 53% – of 2019 Conservative voters would not trust a Conservative government after the next election to behave to high ethical standards (among all adults, 65% do not have much trust)
• 19% – of 2019 Labour voters would not trust a Labour government after the next election to behave to high ethical standards (among all adults, 44% do not have much trust that they would behave ethically)
• 26% – would change their vote if the candidate of their preferred party was found to have broken ethical standards of behaviour.

_{*  Ipsos interviewed a representative quota sample of 1,079 adults aged 18-75 in Great Britain. Interviews took place on the online Omnibus 16-19 February 2024. Data has been weighted to the known offline population proportions. All polls are subject to a wide range of potential sources of error. A full table of results can be found at the bottom of this page.}

In this context, the upcoming election is an important opportunity for both the main political parties to make meaningful, concrete promises that they will do things differently if elected. This would not be without precedent: in the 1990s Labour committed to introduce Freedom of Information legislation after 1997; last year the party used an IfG keynote speech to announce its plans for a new ethics committee. David Cameron set out core transparency commitments ahead of the 2010 election.

Whatever the result of the election, the next government should take this opportunity to show that it will do things differently from recent administrations. This means strengthening the rules that govern how people in government behave, ensuring that the relevant regulator(s) are able to enforce those rules properly, and being open and transparent about what is happening in government.