Attitudes to standards of behaviour in government

Key findings

• 65% of Britons do not think people in the current government behave according to high ethical standards (either not very much or not at all).  Only 26% think they do at least a fair amount.
• Slightly under half (45%), think standards of behaviour are worse now compared with when the government was first elected in 2019.  32% say there is little difference and 16% that things have improved.
• Only 26% would trust a Conservative government to behave according to high ethical standards, if they won the next election.  65% would not (including 53% of 2019 Conservative voters).
• 45% would trust a Labour government to behave according to high ethical standards if they won the next election.  44% would not (including 19% of 2019 Labour voters).
• When asked the impact on their vote if the candidate from their preferred party was a sitting MP who had been found to have broken the expected standards of behaviour, 31% said they would still vote for that party and candidate, while 26% said they would vote for a different party’s candidate, even if that meant voting against the party they wanted to win the election. 

Read the full report from the Institute for Government (IfG) on restoring trust in public life.

Technical Note
Ipsos interviewed a representative quota sample of 1,079 adults aged 18-75 in Great Britain. Interviews took place on the online Omnibus 16th-19th February 2024. Data has been weighted to the known offline population proportions. All polls are subject to a wide range of potential sources of error.