Here is an idiotic question for an England football fan this summer. Which would they prefer winning? The World Cup itself? Or the FIFA Fair Play Trophy, awarded to the side with the best disciplinary record during the tournament?
The answer: it might be nice if England plays decently, but all of us would hugely prefer winning the real thing. Rules matter. But they are meant to support good outcomes, not replace them.
This preference for good outcomes over process applies to most of life. When we are shopping for a jar of coffee, it is a bonus to know that it has been ethically sourced. But for most of us, the primary deciding factor will be the quality of the coffee. A bad coffee, however ethically sourced, will remain a bad coffee.
One place where this does not hold is Westminster. And the Mandelson saga is the perfect illustration of how bad things are.
For in all the countless Select Committee interrogations, all the interviews with civil servants, the House of Commons debates and the media commentary, the questions have been about the process by which Lord Mandelson was appointed as our ambassador in Washington. Who said what to whom and when? Was it within the rules or not? Was undue pressure exerted?
The real question should have been about whether the appointment, or the outcome, was a good one. And here the answer is clearly no. The Prime Minister has said so (‘I regret appointing Peter Mandelson’). His former Chief of Staff has said so (‘a serious error of judgment… like a knife through my soul’). The former Foreign Secretary has said so (‘I am sorry that that decision was made’). They all acknowledge that the decision was bad, while defending the process by which it was made – as if procedural correctness somehow justifies the original, damaging decision.
Surely this should be the other way round? The big mistake that was made was appointing a known baddie to the country’s most important diplomatic role, a mistake for which no one will be reprimanded or punished or lose their job. Yet people have lost their jobs for questions over whether they have fully obeyed the rules. Process beats outcomes.
This would be bad enough if it were a one-off. But it is not. It is generally how the British state – Parliament and the Civil Service – works. If you follow the rules, then the outcomes are secondary.
Take housing: Every party says Britain needs more homes, yet the system remains better at checking whether each stage of the planning process has been followed than at ensuring enough homes are being built. Applications, consultations, environmental requirements, viability assessments and appeals might all have a place. But the cumulative result is a regime in which everyone can plausibly say they followed the process, while depressingly few houses get built. Process is documented; the outcome is forgotten. Apart from by the millions of us who would so greatly benefit from a housing boom.
Similarly, all the main parties say they will prioritise economic growth. It remains stagnant. They all say that they will reform the NHS. Life expectancy falls. They all say they will address long-term care. Quality declines while costs rise.
This has been going on for far too long. The result? A collapse in trust in government. Every year, the British Social Attitudes (BSA) survey, run by the National Centre for Social Research since 1986, asks whether people trust governments ‘just about always’ or ‘most of the time.’
In 1986, around 40% said yes. By 2024, the figure had fallen to just 12%.
That is not a blip caused by one bad government or one scandal. It is a four-decade slide that has continued across Conservative and Labour administrations alike. It suggests something structural is happening, not merely a reaction to recent events.
International comparisons make it starker. OECD data, cited by the Office for Statistics Regulation, puts UK government trust at 27%, against an OECD average of 39%. Britain is not just historically low; it is comparatively low too.
Similarly, the Ipsos Veracity Index, which has tracked perceptions of honesty across professions for over four decades, found in 2025 that only 9% of people trust politicians to tell the truth. Government ministers fare slightly better at 14%. Both figures rank near the bottom of the professions surveyed.
When politicians are widely seen as dishonest, confidence in what they announce, promise and deliver erodes. The ‘broken Britain’ narrative gains force precisely because it fits a climate in which cynicism about political honesty is the baseline, not the exception. The Mandelson saga will only have exacerbated these pre-existing trends.
A second strand of distrust is worth analysing: not whether politicians are honest, but whether they are effective.
Survey research by Ipsos, in partnership with the Institute for Government, found that 49% of respondents rated the Government’s performance as poor, and 63% expressed disappointment with its record since the election. Only 23% believed governments could make substantial progress on key priorities over the next decade.
This matters because competence-based distrust is different from moral condemnation. A voter who thinks politicians are dishonest has lost faith in their character. A voter who thinks government cannot deliver has lost faith in the system’s capacity. Both are present in Britain today, and they reinforce each other.
YouGov polling adds a third dimension: beliefs about political motivation. Majorities across party lines, 63% of Labour voters, 65% of Conservative voters, and 83% of Reform voters, believe politicians are primarily motivated by self-interest rather than public service.
When citizens believe that those in power are neither honest nor effective nor genuinely motivated by the public good, the cumulative effect is a sense that the system is not just underperforming but fundamentally misaligned with their needs.
So what can be done? First, acknowledge that trust builds slowly and erodes quickly. The long-term BSA trend shows that the erosion long predates any single government or political scandal. Reversing it requires sustained improvements in ethical standards, delivery capacity, transparency, and accountability, not a change of slogan.
Second, all of us – politicians, the media, the think tanks, the wider public – should learn from the best-run organisations, both private and public sector: focus on outcomes, not process. This requires quantifiable, clear targets for all levels of the civil service and the public sector. Real performance management, including strong rewards for success. Domain expertise. Low churn. The use of data as an active management tool, not just a reporting mechanism. Learning from failure as well as success. Encouraging candour and… trust. Not hiding behind process. And yes, by all means honour and respect legality, propriety, ethics and good behaviour. But not at the expense of everything else.
Trust in government is now fragile, at best. Rebuilding it will require more than cleaner processes, better slogans or another round of institutional reform. It will require a state that is judged, and judges itself, by whether it delivers. Outcomes must once again come first.
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