This isn’t really all that double glazing related, but it is a post I have been wanting to get off my chest for a little while.

Trust. It’s nice when you have it. However, over the past few years we have had less and less reasons to trust the people and institutions around us:

  • MP’s expenses scandal
  • Banker’s bonuses
  • Bank LIBOR rate fixing scandal
  • Phone hacking
  • Tax evasion
  • Jimmy Savile and other celebrity sex abuses
  • GCHQ accusations of spying on it’s own people
  • NHS cover ups
  • Police cover ups
  • Accusations of smear campaign on the Lawrence family
  • Off-shore tax havens
  • Investigation in oil price fixing
  • PPI scandal

I’m sure there are many more I could add to that list but those are the ones that just came straight to mind. Unfortunately, all that has occurred in that list above has come about in only the last two or three years. One after another after another, with each scandal and with each abuse of the public’s faith, trust in our various institutions and organisations has been well and truly eroded to almost nothing.

Ask the average person on the street what they think about the banks right now and the reaction will be worse than negative. In fact I think the reputation of a double glazing salesman is now better than a bankers! Ask them then about other things like phone hacking, MP’s and what they think about the Government potentially spying and it will be just as scathing. And therein lies the problem. Trust in some of the backbone institutions has now vanished and that is having a very negative impact on the overall mindset of the general public.

When so much trust and faith has been eroded, it is easy to fall into a mindset that nothing and no one can be trusted. This does absolutely no favours for the general mood. It also has a very negative impact on those wrongly tarred by the same brush as the offending parties. Just like in double glazing, the worst companies in our sector often give the rest of us hard working folk a bad name as very often the problem companies get too much exposure which then has a bad knock on effect for everyone else. A dangerous spiral.

But the bigger issue here is the overall lack of trust. I think it is something that has to be very quickly built back up. There are far too many reasons out there for people to become angry, disgruntled and cause trouble on the streets. You only have to look at other countries around the world and see what little issues managed to ignite such a massive ground swell of anger. I’m not saying that we are at the point at which Turkey and Brazil are now, but the longer distrust and anger lingers, the more likely it is something very small could set off some very large problems indeed.

Do you have much trust left in the things we used to hold dear in this country? In my own views, I think everything and everyone has an agenda. Greed and personal self interest has taken over in nearly every aspect of our country’s fabric and I don’t think there is very much we can do about it now.