The UK’s politicians know they’re not trusted. Upon becoming prime minister, the first Labour leader in a generation to win a general election, Keir Starmer put it like this: “The fight for trust is the battle that defines our political era.”
Perhaps it’s a sign of the times that, alongside this, The Traitors, TV’s biggest hit, has won hearts through a thrilling lack of trust. Its cultural allure is such that some of the country’s biggest names – Steven Fry, Jonathan Ross and Clare Balding among them – have volunteered for the show’s first celebrity edition, eager to go to a Scottish castle and lie to each other in front of the public.
What can be learned from these two parallel trust trajectories? Working with leading polling firm Ipsos, we set out to get to the nub of Britain as it is now. To that end, Ipsos’s pollsters asked 1,100 adults in the UK who they trust more: politicians, or the cast of The Celebrity Traitors. Who emerges as a faithful? Who is deemed a traitor?
Read more:
- How is Keir Starmer doing as prime minister?
- The Traitors winner Harry Clark: ‘I wish I hadn’t signed an NDA’
- Brits feel more powerless and distrusting than ever, research finds: ‘This is worrying for all of us’
The findings are fascinating – and might not make for comfortable reading for some of our major politicians. Working with leading polling firm Ipsos, we pitted the cast of The Celebrity Traitors against the UK’s leading politicians to discover who the public trust more.
And guess what…
- They were asked: of these two, who do you think is the most trustworthy.
- In every case, the public trusts a set of celebrities heading to a castle to lie to each other more than those leading the country’s political parties.
- Claudia Winkleman is more trusted than Rachel Reeves. Jonathan Ross more trusted than Keir Starmer (41% v 23%), Charlotte Church more than Angela Rayner (45% v 15%), Kate Garraway more than Kemi Badenoch (46% v 16%), Clare Balding more than Ed Davey (47% v 15%), and Alan Carr more than Nigel Farage (50% v 22%).
Some surprising facts
- Men are more likely than women to trust Rachel Reeves over Claudia Winkleman.
- Liberal Democrats are not the most likely to trust Ed Davey over Clare Balding: that honour falls to Labour 2024 voters.
- Minority ethnic respondents are more likely than white respondents to trust Nigel Farage over Alan Carr, as were graduates more likely than non-graduates, and London more than the North.
- Leave voters were equally likely (37% each) to trust Nigel Farage and Alan Carr.
The favourites to win the show
- Stephen Fry: 12%
- Alan Carr: 5%
- Jonathan Ross: 4%
- Clare Balding, Tom Daley, Joe Wilkinson, Charlotte Church, Joe Marler: 3%
- Kate Garraway, Niko Omilana, Nick Mohammed: 2%
- Celia Imrie, David Olusoga, Mark Bonnar, Paloma Faith, Lucy Beaumont, Cat Burns: 1%
- Tameka Empson, Ruth Codd: 0%
- Don’t know: 50%
Ipsos polled 1,100 British adults, aged 16-75, online between 22-25 August
