Losing the Voters' Trust: Evaluations of the Political System and Voting at the 1997 British General Election

Abstract

Questions of standards in public life came to the fore of British politics during the 1992–1997 parliament. Concerns were expressed over the probity of individual politicians and of political parties and worries extended to the health of the British system of government as a whole. Underlying these news stories, however, were wider issues concerning attitudes towards government. Furthermore, these concerns about standards were also extensively reported during the 1997 election campaign, and were widely held, in popular accounts, to have played a part in the Conservative government's dramatic defeat. But, surprisingly, few academic analyses have tried to gauge either the extent of public concerns in 1997, or whether they really had an impact on party support. More generally, recent political science interest has focused on fears of declining public trust in the democratic system, throughout the western world. This article explores British voters' trust in their polity.