PRINCE Charles is right. Cynicism is a very negative emotion. It can destroy our society.

It is destroying our democracy. The feeling prevails that politicians are only in it for themselves. That's partly why turn-out at the General Election tumbled to 50 per cent, and why local elections are usually decided by a less than a quarter of those eligible to vote.

He is also right that cynicism prevents us from seeing that Britain really is a fine country. Thanks to the sterling, unsung work of doctors and nurses, the National Health Service successfully treats millions of people. It merely needs improving.

Thanks to the work of railway people up and down the country, the vast majority of trains arrive safely on time. The system, though, does need improving.

Thanks to teachers, our children are better educated than previous generations. Schools and standards, though, do need improving.

Thanks to council staff, our rubbish is collected regularly and our roads are, generally, in a good state of repair. Things could, though, do with improvement.

Thanks to our police, most of us haven't been brutalised or burgled recently - although many of us fear we might be. However, the police, too, could do with improving.

This may not be the view you get from newspapers. Perhaps the media does suggest that the NHS is killing all its patients, that the railways are killing all their passengers, that teachers are failing all their pupils, that councils can't even collect binbags, that the police are letting criminals roam the streets unhindered. The media also needs some improving.

But if you are to be tough on cynicism, you've also got to be tough on the causes of cynicism. Our leaders at both national and local levels must also take a less cynical view of the rest of us.

They can't spin away things like the Mittal affair or the Jo Moore incident with a collection of evasions and half truths.

They can't allow an organisation like the Teesside Development Corporation to lose £40m without questions being asked.

They can't let the Richard Neale case pass without telling us why a gynaecologist disgraced in one country can be allowed to harm scores of women in North Yorkshire.

They can't dismiss the foot-and -mouth outbreak with a hotch-potch of secretive, incomplete investigations.

They can't spend up to £7m and five years on Operation Lancet and not tell us the whole unvarnished truth.

Yes, it is easy to become cynical. But who drives us into that cynicism?