While there remains euphoria over the US election result, and perhaps a little within the Labour camp on the Glenrothes result also, trust has returned as an issue. The Committee on Standards in Public Life has released a report that show trust in politicians continues to decline. The most interesting element of the report is that local elected representatives seem to be given much higher ratings than those elected to Westminster and the proximity to the top seems to be an index for losing trust. Why might this be?
It would seem to be the case that local politicians are at the very least not seen to be able to abuse their position and so work more for the community than themselves, as opposed to national politicians who 62% seem to fear might work more for themselves than for the nation. Is it perhaps because they remain in the community as opposed to working away, does this allow them to maintain a link to those they represent? A key problem for national politicians is that they become locked into the Westminster village, they deal with the mass media and so become involved in the defending of party policy to the many journalists that approach such interviews with the Paxman philosophy of "why is this lying bastard lying to me". But importantly also they become advocates of the party!
Research on incumbency at the 2005 election demosntrated that MPs who provide a good service the their constituency can overcome this lack of trust. The reason is that they are seen to be local representatives first as opposed to party advocates. While of course not every MP can demonstrate both nationally, perhaps if more MPs were stronger local representatives a greater sense of connection could be made.
While many would say I do that, here is an interesting bit of data. MPs in the most marginal seats appear in their local newspapers on average twice a week, the average for MPs in safer seats (5,000 majority or more) is once a month. Perhaps advertising the constituency role could be key here and more MPs would be seen as having a connection and working locally as opposed to be remote party workers.