Sleaze and Trust: Labour Trades Mistrust for Sleaze

Sleaze still attracted attention in 2004 but the number of politicians subject to media stories and parliamentary inquiries was small and did not figure much in the headlines until the allegations leading to the resignation of David Blunkett at the end of the year. Before the Blunkett case, the Committee on Standards in Public Life suggested that the few stories involving sex or money have not imprinted themselves on the public mind. This may have resulted from a decline in cases or greater tolerance, but may be symptomatic of a wider disengagement from politics, marked by growing mistrust of politicians. The widespread disquiet over the invasion of Iraq and the reasons given for doing so is reflected in surveys on trust in the government. The Prime Minister sought to justify the war as being in the national interest, but the erosion of this argument and the controversy over the dossiers of ‘evidence’, has reinforced a widespread public distaste for government ‘spin’ and less concern about sleaze and more about mistrust that may have implications beyond the Iraq war.