Levels of trust between people in Britain on the decline
Levels of trust between people in Britain have declined and stagnated over the last 60 years with profound implications for the country’s future prosperity and economic growth, a senior Government adviser has warned.
Just 30 per cent of the public believe “most people can be trusted” while nearly 70 per cent say you “need to be very careful” when dealing with strangers, figures from the World Values Surveyreveal.
The numbers are significantly lower than when the question was first asked in the 1950s when nearly 60 per cent of the public believed that strangers could be trusted. Even in the 1980s, British trust levels stood at around 40 per cent.
Now David Halpern, the head of the Behavioural Insights Team that advises ministers on the formulation of Government policy across Whitehall, is calling for greater attention to be paid to increasing trust levels in society as an integral part of economic growth strategy.
“When you look at the figures it is remarkable,” he said. “Social trust seems to be a powerful predictor of economic growth and a lack of trust can stunt national economic growth rates. This really is super important. It is quite astonishing that people very rarely look at social capital when looking at how to encourage economic growth.”
(continued, over-run with foreigners and most of them don't speak French....no wonder trust in France is worse than here...)
