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Kapitel 8 Landeskunde
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Reforms
The United Kingdom is usually seen as a centralised state, with Parliament
at Westminster holding responsibility for most of the UK’s political
power. This is still true today, but there have been a number of
changes: in the 1990s Parliament decided to give a certain degree of
autonomy to national assemblies in Scotland, Wales and Northern
Ireland. This process is called devolution (“handing down” of powers
from central government to government at regional or local level).
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Martin Kettle: “We Can’t Just Blame Our Lack of Trust on Tony Blair’s
‘Lies’”. The Guardian. December 30, 2006.
Sum up the results of the surveys of public opinion. Discuss steps to
improve trust in the EU and public institutions in Britain.
Whether it’s about politicians, the media or Europe, our
levels of mistrust have become a serious national problem.
The European Union has just published the results of
its latest Eurobarometer survey of public opinion in the
25 European member states. Perhaps it is no surprise to
discover that Britain once again comes at the bottom
of the trust table in attitudes towards the EU. Just 26 %
of us trust the EU, compared with a not overly impressive
45 % of the European population as a whole. What
is most striking of all, though, is that the gap between
us and the next most mistrustful nation (Sweden) is so
large, 12 points. This suggests that we live in a world of
our own.
Because it’s not just the EU we don’t trust. We don’t
trust our own government either. The Eurobarometer
t
t is accountable to
t
controls
Monarch
head of state
mostly representative functions
Government
Prime Minister
appoints
t
Cabinet
survey found that just 24 % of Britons trust the British
government – a six point fall in just six months, by the
way. It’s true that we finished above the Hungarians
(whose government admitted this year that it had lied
to them about the economic situation) and the Poles
(whose government has become a byword for incompetence
at home and abroad) and on the same score as
Jacques Chirac’s broken-backed French government. But
there’s a pattern here that can’t be overlooked. We are
25th out of 25 on trust for the EU, 22nd out of 25 on trust
for our national government, and 19th out of 25 in trust
for our national parliament. Trustwise, we are the Watford
of the western world.
And don’t try to kid yourself that this is all just about
politicians. Our net of mistrust is cast far wider than
that. When Eurobarometer measured the level of trust
t
appoints leader
of the majority
party as
Prime Minister
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25
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