A question of trust - part two

5.00.00pm BST (GMT +0100) Mon 11th Oct 2004

Michael Howard, who made such an issue of trust at last week's Conservative Party Conference, is not trusted by the electorate. An NOP opinion poll in the weekend's Independent shows 73% of the public do not believe Howard's pledge to be different from politicians who have broken their promises; only 19% believe he will do as he says.

The results are not much better where Conservative supporters are concerned with 39% not believing him and less than half (49%) believing him. Only 9 per cent of Labour supporters and 14 per cent of Liberal Democrats believe his promise to be different.