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Trust in Public Life
This lecture took place on 10 November 2008
Convened and Chaired by Peter Hennessy, FBA, Queen Mary, University of London, with Onora O''Neilll, President of the British Academy, Mark Thompson, Director-General of the BBC and Lord Wilson of Dinton, University of Cambridge.
The panel will discuss whether public trust in our major public institutions has fallen as much as is widely suggested, whether and why this matters, and if there are any remedies for arresting its decline. Onora O'Neill gave the Reith Lectures under the title A Question of Trust in 2002. She will argue that trust is too often seen merely as an attitude, rather than as evidence-based. Yet attitudes, whether suspicious or credulous, are not enough for placing or refusing trust intelligently. If we are to trust intelligently, we need relevant and intelligible evidence - but much of the evidence offered to support the placing of trust in institutions and professionals is unintelligible, because it is either hyper-complex (e.g. information on pensions) or simplified to the point of distortion (e.g. school league tables). She will consider whether more intelligently chosen information could support more intelligent placing and refusal of trust. Mark Thompson became Director-General of the BBC in 2004 and has faced the twin challenges of restoring public trust in the corporation after the Hutton crisis and, more recently, renewing trust following a misleading trailer featuring the Queen and problems with on-air competitions. How does he define the role that trust plays in broadcasting and the media generally, and does he think that it has declined? Richard Wilson was Cabinet Secretary in the early years of the Blair government, from 1998 to 2002. He is well placed to judge whether there are lessons we can learn about restoring faith in our public institutions and will ask whether an element of mistrust, in moderation, may be inevitable and even healthy. Lord Wilson is now Master of Emmanuel College Cambridge and a non-executive director of BSkyB. Peter Hennessy, formerly a distinguished journalist and now Attlee Professor of Contemporary British History at Queen Mary, University of London, will introduce the panellists, chair the discussion and invite the audience to debate the issues raised.
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