A meeting of the members of the British Polling Council (BPC) was held on Friday 16th May. Discussion concerned an Ipsos survey for Transport for London, aspects of which were released to the press by the Mayor of London, Ken Livingstone on 18th December.
Trust in the BBC has widely been called into question in recent months, with scandals over a Blue Peter phone-in vote and the documentary about the Queen. Despite this, the UK public are most likely to trust the BBC out of a range of British institutions, much more than they trust the government — which is just as well, since TV and radio broadcasters are seen by far more as being influential than are the government.
For the second month in a row, Ipsos's Political Monitor data shows that public concern about the economy has moved into the top five issues facing the country. Almost one in five people (18%) spontaneously mention the economy when asked "what would you say is / are the most important issue(s) facing Britain today?".
Every year I'm fascinated to see just how stable public trust is in the occupations in the public's eye. Yet to see the media listen to the commentators on radio and television, you'd think that trust in institutions is declining sharply. To listen to them, you'd think that nobody trusts anybody anymore. They are wrong: there has been no general decline in trust over the past two decades, as shown over nearly a quarter of a century, by our surveys, initially done in 1983 for the Sunday Times and this year sponsored by the Royal College of Physicians.
On Tuesday 5th February, the primary season reaches a crescendo as twenty four states vote simultaneously for their preferred presidential candidate. Much larger than any previous "Super Tuesday", the day's voting should see a clearer picture emerge of who each party's nominee will be.
