Liz Truss’ biggest weakness is her lack of authenticity

The members of the public I have spoken to in key swing seats that the Tories must hold at the next election if Truss is to remain prime minister beyond 2024 are deeply unimpressed by what they see, writes Ed Dorrell

In truth, Truss wasn’t even as well known as that extra who has run a stall in Albert Square for 40 years without saying a word (Getty Images)

It feels like a lifetime since I first brought up the name “Liz Truss” in a focus group, in a bid to see how voters would respond. It was in fact just six weeks ago.

Since then, one thing has changed and others have not. The thing that has changed is name and face recognition. Most normal people have now heard of Truss – and most people know that she’s very likely to be our next prime minister.

This wasn’t the case at the start of this neverending leadership campaign. The PM-in-waiting may have been foreign secretary and she may have been the longest-standing current cabinet minister, but she was a long way from A-list in the celeb stakes. In truth, she wasn’t even as well known as that extra who has run a stall in Albert Square for 40 years without saying a word.

No more. These days, most people do have a good idea who she is. (It is, however, worth noting that she was still not universally recognised by the public, just a week before she gets the keys to No 10).

What hasn’t changed is how those who do know who she is talk about her. It is evidently way too late to change the outcome of the leadership race, but if I were one of the few Conservative members left to vote, it would give me pause for thought.

The members of the public I have spoken to in key swing seats that the Tories must hold at the next election if Truss is to remain prime minister beyond 2024 are deeply unimpressed by what they see. They think she is cold and uninspiring. She is often called “robotic” and she is often compared to Theresa May (which, for the avoidance of doubt, is *not* a good thing).

Here’s how one Tory voter in a marginal constituency put it: “She looks devious. She looks untrustworthy, just looks too much like a politician – even more than Rishi.”

Another added: “Liz Truss just seems a bit cold.”

I am not the first commentator to make this observation, but it is clear to me that Truss is going to struggle badly with authenticity in the eyes of the electorate. She is a politician from a different age – an age before Boris Johnson and the age before the cost of living crisis.

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As I have written before, voters, in their millions, believed (wrongly) that Boris Johnson was authentic, that he was on their side and that he understood their everyday problems. Boris may have spectacularly jumped that particular shark, but it doesn’t mean that there isn’t still a desire among voters for national leaders to be authentic.

I have a high degree of confidence that that need will become more pronounced, and not less, as the worst economic disaster for at least 40 years starts to tear through communities in the next few months. Whatever you think of the policies Truss might be forced to put in place to mitigate the crisis, what people will not want is a robotic prime minister issuing words from a “lines to take document”. It is worth remembering what happened when May turned up in the aftermath of Grenfell.

The next few months are going to be grim in this country. Lives, probably, and businesses, almost certainly, are going to be brutalised by energy prices and inflation. If the new prime minister struggles to empathise with this trauma, then voters will turn on her in a heartbeat.