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So I'm going to talk about trust.

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And I'm going to start 
by reminding you

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of the standard views 
that people have about trust.

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I think these are so commonplace

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they've become cliches of our society.

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And I think there are three.

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One's a claim:

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there's been a great decline 
in trust. Very widely believed.

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The second is an aim:
we should have more trust.

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And the third is a task: 
we should rebuild trust.

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I think that the claim, the aim 
and the task are all misconceived.

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So what I'm going 
to try to tell you today

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is a different story about 
a claim, an aim and a task,

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which I think give one quite 
a lot better purchase on that matter.

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First the claim.

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Why do people think trust has declined?

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And if I really think about it 
on the basis of my own evidence,

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I don't know the answer.

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I don't -- I'm inclined to think 
it may have declined in some activities

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or some institutions and 
it might have grown in others.

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I don't have an overview.

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But of course I can look
at the opinion polls.

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And the opinion polls are supposedly

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the sourse of the belief 
that trust has declined.

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When you actually look 
at opinion polls across time,

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there is not much evidence for that.

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That's to say the people 
who were mistrusted 20 years ago

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principally journalists and politicians,
are still mistrusted.

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And the people who were 
highly trusted 20 years ago

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are sill rather highly trusted: 
judges, nurses.

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The rest of us is in between.

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And by the way, 
the average person in the street

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is almost exactly midway.

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But is that good evidence?

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What opinion polls record 
is of course opinions.

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What else can they record?

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So, they are looking at

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the generic attitudes 
that people report

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when you ask them certain questions.

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Do you trust politicians?

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Do you trust teachers?

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Now, if somebody said to you:

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"Do you trust greengrocers?"

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"Do you trust fishmongers?"

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"Do you trust elementary 
school teachers?"

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You would probably begin
by saying: "To do what?"

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And that would be 
a perfectly sensible response.

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And you might say,

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when you understood 
the answer to that,

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"Well, I trust some of them, 
but not others."

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That's a perfectly rational thing.

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In short, in our real lives,

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we seek to place trust
in a differenciated way.

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We don't make an assumption 
that the level of trust

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that we will have

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in every instance of a certain type

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of official office helder 
or type of person

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is going to be uniform.

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I might, for example, 
say that I certainly trust

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a certain elementary 
school teacher I know,

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to teach the reception class to read,

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but no way to drive the school mini bus.

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(Laughter)

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I might after all know 
that she wasn't a good driver.

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I might trust my most loquacious friend

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to keep a conversation going,

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but perhaps not to keep a secret.

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Simple.

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So if we've got those evidence 
in our ordinary lives,

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in the way that trust is differenciated,

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why do we sort of drop 
all that intelligence

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when we think about trust 
more abstractly?

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I think the polls are very bad guides 
to the level of trust

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that actually exists, because 
they try to obliterate

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the good judgement 
that goes into placing trust.

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Secondly, what about the aim?

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The aim is to have more trust.

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Well, frankly, I think 
that's a stupid aim.

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It's not what I would aim at.

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I would aim to have 
more trust in the trustworthy,

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but not in the untrustworthy.

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(Laughter)

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In fact, I aim positively to try 
not to trust the untrustworthy.

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(Laughter)

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And I think of those people 
who, for example,

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placed their savings with 
the very aptly named Mr Madoff,

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who then made off with them,

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(Laughter)

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And I think of them,

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I think: "Well, yes, too much trust."

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More trust is not 
an intelligent aim in this life.

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Intelligently placed and intelligently 
refused trust is the proper aim.

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Well one once said that,

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one says: "Yeah, ok, 
that means that what matters

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in the first place is not trust, 
but trustworthiness."

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It's judging how trustworthy 
people are in particular respects.

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And i think this judgement 
requires us to look at three things:

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Are they competent?

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Are they honest?

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Are they reliable?

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And if we find that a person is 
competent in the relevant matters,

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and reliable, and honest,

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we'll have a pretty good reason 
to trust them,

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because they'll be trustworthy.

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But if, on the other hand, 
they are unreliable, we might not.

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I have friends who 
are competent and honest,

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but I would not trust them 
to post a letter,

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because they are forgetful.

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(Laughter)

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I have friends who are very confident

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they can do certain things,

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but I realise that they overestimate 
their own competence.

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I'm very glad to say I don't think 
I have many friends

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who are competent and reliable, 
but extremely dishonest.

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(Laughter)

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If so, I haven't yet spotted it.

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(Laughter)

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But that's what we are looking for,

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trustworthiness before trust.

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Trust is the response.

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Trustworthiness is what we have to judge.

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And, of course, it is difficult.

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Across the last few decades,
we tried to construct

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systems of accountability 
for all sorts of institutions,

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and professionals, and officials,
and so on,

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that we'll make it easier for us 
to judge their trustworthiness.

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A lot of these systems 
have the converse effect.

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They don't work 
as they are supposed to.

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I remember I was talking 
with a midwife, who said:

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"Well, you see the problem is 
it takes longer to do

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the paper work than 
to deliver the baby."

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(Laughter)

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And all over our public life 
or institutional life,

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we find that problem 
that the system of accountability,

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that is meant to secure trustworthiness
and evidence of trustworthiness

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is actually doing the opposite.

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It is distracting people who have 
to do difficult tasks, like midwives

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from doing them, by requiring them

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to "tick the boxes", as we say.

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You can all give your own examples there.

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So, so much for the aim.

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The aim, I think, 
is more trustworthiness,

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and that's going to be different 
if we are trying to be trustworthy

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and communicate our trustworthiness 
to other people,

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and if we are trying to judge 
whether other people or office helders,

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or polititians are trustworthy.

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It's not easy, it is judgement,

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and simple reaction, attitudes don't do

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don't do adequately here.

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Now, thirdly, the task.

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Calling the task rebuilding trust,

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I think, also gets things backwards.

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It suggests that you 
and I should rebuild trust.

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Well, we could do that for ourselves.

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We can rebuild a bit of trustworthiness,

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we can do it two people together, 
trying to improve trust.

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But trust, in the end, is distinctive,

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because it's given by other people.

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You can't rebuild what 
other people gave you.

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You have to give them 
the basis for giving you their trust.

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So you have to, I think, be trustworthy

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and that, of course, 
is because you can't fool

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all of the people 
all of the time. Usually.

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(Laughter)

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But you also have 
to provide usable evidence

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that you are trustworthy.

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How to do it?

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Well, everyday, all over 
the place, it's being done

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by ordinary people, by officials, 
by institutions quite effectively.

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Let me give you 
a simple commercial example.

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The shop where I buy my socks

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says I may take them back.

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And they don't ask any questions,

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they take them back 
and give me the money

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or give me the pair of socks 
of the color I wanted.

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That's super.

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I trust them, because
they have made themselves

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vulnerable to me.

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There's a big lesson in that.

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If you make yourself vulnerable
to the other party,

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then that is very good evidence

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that you are trustworthy,

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and you have confidence 
in what you are saying.

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So, in the end, I think 
what we are aiming for

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is not very difficult to discern.

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It is relationships in which 
people are trustworthy

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and can judge when and how

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the other person is trustworthy.

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So the moral of all this is

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we need to think 
much less about trust,

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let alone about attitudes of trust,

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detected or misdetected by opinion polls,

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much more about being trustworthy

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and how you give people adequate,

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useful and simple evidence 
that you are trustworthy.

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Thanks.

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(Applause)