Party leaders and their fixers are pouring over the polls as election day arrives but maybe they should ask a different question.
Politician trustworthiness has been put to the test Richard Nixon-style with the poll question: Would you buy a used car from this Prime Minister?
The survey harks back to the 1960 Democratic Party presidential election poster campaign that famously used the slogan ‘Would YOU buy a used car from this man?’ with a photo of Nixon. In the closely contested election Nixon went on to lose to John F. Kennedy.
Reviving that, Carmoola quizzed the public ahead of election day to find out which PM candidate and party were deemed the most honest person to get a solid second-hand car from.
Keir Starmer, leader of the Labour Party, and Nigel Farage, leader of Reform, emerged as more trustworthy choices for a used car purchase than Prime Minister Rishi Sunak
Labour’s Keir Starmer came out on top, with 27 per cent saying they would trust him to sell them a car – maybe it’s all the recent stories he’s been telling of his favourite cars?
Perhaps suprisingly, Nigel Farage – whose Reform Party is promising to stop ‘the war on motorists’ – came second with 22 per cent of respondents saying they’d trust him on a second-hand motor.
Meanwhile, numbers man, Rishi Sunak, came third with just 19 per cent saying they’d trust him to sell them a used car.
Rishi Sunak came third with just 19 per cent saying they’d trust him when buying a used car. But, in a bigger blow to the Tories, a massive 68 per cent of voters wouldn’t trust Rishi to sell them a used car – the highest level of distrust placed in any of the politicians
Reversing the question to whether you wouldn’t trust a leader selling you a motor dealt a big blow to the Tories, however, as will as indicating that all the leaders would do well to get someone else to sell on their cars for them.
A massive 68 per cent of voters wouldn’t trust Rishi to sell them a used car – the highest level of distrust placed in any of the politicians.
Even though Starmer won the poll, 57 per cent still wouldn’t buy a used car from him, while 64 per cent wouldn’t from Farage.
Some 2,051 people aged 16-plus were quizzed about which potential Prime Minister they’d trust to sell them a second-hand car.
Respondents were able to answer yes, no, don’t know or I’m not familiar with this person.
Incredibly, one in ten (11 per cent) people didn’t know who Ed Davey was, compared to 19 per cent for Denyer and 20 per cent for Ramsay.
Green co-leaders Carla Denyer and Adrian Ramsay took fifth and sixth respectively.
John Swinney (SNP) and Rhun ap Iorwerth (Plaid Cymru’s leader) got 11 per cent and 9 per cent of people saying yes they are trustworthy, putting them in seventh and eighth place.
Liberal Democrat leader Ed Davey took home fourth place in the Nixon-esque poll (17 per cent would trust him. In political party trustworthiness the Lib Dems came third
Political party preferences were also surveyed, with Labour also taking home the win. Some 39 per cent would trust Labour to sell them a used car.
Interestingly, despite the Green Party having the most anti-car manifesto of all parties- the Green manifesto wants to ban all petrol and diesel cars by 2035 – they are the second most trusted party when it comes to selling a used car.
The Greens told home a 27 per cent yes vote.
The Lib Dems came third with 22 per cent, Reform fourth with 21 per cent and the Conservatives only taking home 19 per cent ‘yes’ votes.
The SNP had the highest ‘no’ vote with 69 per cent not trusting the Scottish Nationalist Party to sell them a used car, while the Conservatives and Plaid Cymru both got 69 per cent distrust scores.
Drives me crazy: The motoring pledges in the party manifestos
Historically, Sunak polls worse than four of his seven most recent predecessor Prime Ministers.
Gordon Brown, Theresa May, David Cameron and Boris Johnson all tied in first place with 21 per cent of people saying they’d trust these leaders to sell them a used car.
But Gordon Brown had the lowest percentage among recent PMs of respondents who would not buy him, with 61 per cent not trusting him.
John Major and Rishi Sunak came joint fifth with 19 per cent, while Tony Blair was just behind on 18 per cent.
Unsurprisingly the shortest serving Prime Minister in UK history Liz Truss tops the list of politicians from whom people would not buy a used car – almost three quarters (74 per cent) of people expressed distrust.
In a wider political context, this polling demonstrates the general distrust in politicians.
All parties have recently published their manifestos’, and motoring is one of the leading areas for campaign, with each party trying to get drivers onboard.
This is Money has recently published a guide to the election for motorists, where we dissect the different manifestos to find out what the different party stances are when it comes to drivers.
Some links in this article may be affiliate links. If you click on them we may earn a small commission. That helps us fund This Is Money, and keep it free to use. We do not write articles to promote products. We do not allow any commercial relationship to affect our editorial independence.
