ABSTRACT
Mr Charles Miller, Secretary to the Association of Professional Political Consultants of London, spoke on the theme ‘Interest groups, lobbyists or constituents: who do politicians really represent?’ There is no doubt as to the ‘right’ answer to this question: politicians represent their constituents - those who voted against them no less than those who voted for them. The framing of the question, however, reflects the distrust in which politicians are generally held, the suspicion that they are more concerned with further ing their own interests than those of the people they are supposed to rep resent. Mr Miller quoted the results of certain opinion surveys which bear out the low esteem in which politicians are held. A MORI poll taken in 1983 revealed the degree of public confidence in the integrity of certain occupa tional categories according to the following scale: doctors 82 per cent; teachers 79 per cent; TV newsreaders 63 per cent; the police 61 per cent; politicians in general 18 per cent; government ministers 16 per cent. A similar poll taken ten years later revealed that all the above categories except the two last-mentioned had gained in public confidence. Politicians in general had fallen to 14 per cent and ministers to 11 per cent. Only journalists fared worse. This was the public perception which led to the appointment of the Nolan Committee and to committee investigations by both Houses of the British Parliament into matters affecting the standards of public life.
