That's why politicians are so keen to remind us these days that their father was a toolmaker or worked on the buses.

There's some research that suggests that around the middle of the 20th century, what most citizens were looking for most in their politicians in a country like the UK was a kind of statesman or statesperson, someone who wasn't really like other people, but was actually quite exceptional in terms of their levels of integrity or competence.

They were a politician acting for people as opposed to necessarily being someone of the people.

More recent evidence suggests that in the last few decades, citizens have come to want much more in their politicians, politicians who are able to perform or demonstrate a kind of ordinariness in terms of their thinking and behaviour.

So that idea of authenticity as ordinariness does seem to be much more recent, especially in the UK context.

And Nick Clark

Why is it so hard for government ministers to sound like they're being open when they're being interviewed on the Today programme or on Question Time? Why does it feel like they're not being authentic and that we can't really trust them?

Politics in recent decades has changed a little bit.