We trust our MPs less than our hairdressers – that’s exactly how it should be

Democracy does not mean absolute trust in a Beloved Leader

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Of course we trust our hairdressers. That’s the deal; we pay them to make us look chic and listen to our chat. We know they will do it, and they do. That is the contract in which one engages when one enters a salon and gets ready for that deeply unpleasant backwards experience in a moulded basin.

Have you ever heard a hairdresser say, “Sorry, I’ve been trying for hours with this pixie cut but I am afraid your hair still looks rubbish, and please don’t tell me about your holidays”? Of course you haven’t.

It is therefore unsurprising that yesterday’s news from the Veracity Index, which has been charting levels of public trust since 1983, gives them such a high rating; 69 per cent of us trust our hairdressers, apparently, which is even more than the number who trust the clergy (67 per cent). I’m surprised anyone trusts the clergy an inch, quite apart from the fact that they have brought such disrepute on their own heads in recent years. While we can guarantee a visit to the salon will end up with a new haircut, a visit to a church is far less clear in terms of outcome, other than a bit of group singing.

Hairdressers, meanwhile, aren’t prone to bad behaviour and their professional reputation enjoys almost zero scandal. High street salons aren’t centres for organised crime and the people who work in them are not associated with lying. Unlike police stations or the BBC which have had their foundations rocked following widespread and repeated crises involving abuse, mendacity and violence. The only cover-up you will find in a salon is black cotton with a nice bow at the front.

Pleasant, upstanding people make hairdressers. David Beckham once wanted to be one, which sums it up perfectly. The only crime Nicky Clarke has committed relates to his continuing taste for unbuttoned shirts.

However, while we journalists saunter in at a level of public trust of just 25 per cent (as does that other generally loathed workforce: estate agents), the least-trusted occupation in the index is the politician. Only 21 per cent of us trust our democratically elected leaders. While this figure might be related to the aggravating presence of bespoke duck shelters and dodgy second homes, I don’t think that’s the whole picture. Neither do I think it signifies the end of civilisation, or a state of political moral decay.

Perhaps it is evidence of the opposite, for it’s surely rather good that only one person in five thinks MPs ought to be trusted, come what may. Because the job is not about trust at all. That’s what you have in monarchical rule. Cross your fingers and hope the heir will work out OK. What we have, instead, is an electorate commissioning a body of people to do a job.

Politicians have an elected mandate to represent their constituencies in Parliament, the ruling party has a mandate to run the country, and we go through a process every five years to ensure the job is done properly. It’s a help, of course, if those elected are not lying criminals, and, admittedly, some do the job spectacularly badly, but not because we are putting blind faith in them.

Politics takes place under continued scrutiny; from the Opposition, from the press, from Question Time, from Twitter, from the public gallery. That is what living in a free democracy means: not trusting that your Beloved Leader will get it right, it means not having a Beloved Leader. It means challenging what our politicians are doing, always. It means questioning their decisions and – precisely because 79 per cent of us absolutely don’t trust them anyway – requiring robust evidence, be it about the slack nature of hospitals at weekends, benefits tourism or the danger posed by Muslim women who are not fluent in English.

The other thing about the politician/hairdresser conundrum is the fact that hairdressers operate solely on a personal basis. You trust your hairdresser because you have paid him or her to deal with you, and you alone, with every ounce of their skill, patience and experience. Even if it involves putting on an interested face.

Whereas with politicians, your needs aren’t always going to be accommodated. And that is just life. As the saying goes: “I can only please one of you a day. Today is not your day. Tomorrow’s not looking good either.”