The financial crisis that seized the developed world in 2008, sending shock waves through markets and plunging the world into a prolonged recession, did more than wreak socio-economic havoc: it significantly eroded trust between politics, business and the media. By inference, the public’s trust of politics, business and the media has been negatively impacted and a series of scandals involving each of these key pillars of society has enforced this sense of mistrust and created schisms between these institutions, driving a rift between them and the public. The importance of trust cannot be underestimated: it is an essential component of a flourishing democracy and economy. Without trust, investment is severely hampered and growth is strangled before even the “green shoots” appear. The dearth of trust is one of the major issues facing society today.
A recent research report conducted by Populus, commissioned by DLA Piper, has found that multiple trust “deficits” exist in our society. Moreover, the lack of trust between the three aforementioned “estates” is not only deeper now than back in 2011, when the inaugural Trust report was published, but it is wider too, with diverging ideologies splitting political parties, the phone hacking scandal afflicting the fourth estate, and the manifold recent negative stories stemming from the business community, particular from the financial services and energy sectors, appear to have tainted the reputation of all private enterprise. It is clear that trust between business, politics and the media has now broken down completely.
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