ACCORDING to the Chinese philosopher Confucius, there are three things needed for government: weapons, food and trust.

If a ruler can't hold on to all three, he should give up the weapons first and the food next.

Trust should be guarded to the end because: "Without trust we cannot stand."

Good job he isn't alive today, then.

Because, in virtually every poll that is held on the issue of trust, politicians emerge as the least trusted people, with journalists, estate agents and lawyers battling it out a close second.

Politicians may not like acknowledging it in public but the figures speak for themselves: the number of people saying they trust the government of the day has halved since 1986.

Between 2000 and 2002 Tony Blair's personal trustworthiness plummeted and the committee on standards in public life discovered that the war in Iraq had diminished trust in the government in 40 per cent of the electorate.

A survey by the Office of National Statistics revealed that 68 per cent think official figures are changed to support politicians' arguments; 59 per cent think the government uses them dishonestly; and 58 per cent think official figures are politically interfered with.

The issues around trust were given an exhaustive airing in the 2002 Reith Lectures, a traditional barometer of current thinking from the great and the good.

Academic Onora O'Neilll spoke of a Crisis in trust', telling her audience: "It isn't only rulers and governments who prize and need trust.

"Each of us, and every profession and every institution needs trust.

"We need it because we have to be able to rely on others acting as they say they will, and because we need others to accept that we will act as we say we will."

She quoted the sociologist Niklas Luhman, who said that: "A complete absence of trust would prevent one even getting up in the morning."

Ms O'Neill believes that: "Mistrust and suspicion have spread across all areas of life, and supposedly with good reason.

"Loss of trust' is, in short, a cliché of our times."

But is it? Or is that a myth pedalled by the - generally mistrusted - media?

According to David Bradshaw, Head of Journalism and Communications at the Media School at Bournemouth University, the media is part of the problem although not always in the way people think.

People have a general mistrust of journalists but do believe and trust in broadcasters like Jeremy Paxman and Jon Snow.

They revere certain personalities, such as Sir David Attenborough but are starting to mistrust certain shows and phone con scandals don't help.

"Television is a totally artificial medium," says Mr Bradshaw.

"But its artificiality has been largely concealed from the viewers.

"Slowly the audience is learning more and more how television is constructed and are able to see through much of it."

He believes mistrust has grown over the phones scandal because viewers had not always appreciated how certain quiz shows and contestant phone-ins were organised in order to make money and he believes the latest series of Celebrity Big Brother has further undermined trust.

"Then you get shows like Jerry Springer, where the producers are working very hard to engineer confrontations," he says.

But what about Blue Peter?

"He believes the show will be carried through by its hitherto solid reputation.

"It's been on forever so I think you are bound to get hiccups from time to time."