I dream of Theresa May. It often feels as if I am dreaming for her, for it is impossible to know if androids dream. In the dream we are in a dorm or bunk beds and we have to get up to do some mundane task, like unblock a sink. It is always urgent and I shake her awake but I cannot make her get up. She just doesn’t want to.

The dream came back to me as I watched her being “grilled” by Andrew Marr. She doesn’t want to do this. My unconscious, at least, lets her refuse to get up and face the world. Her job, though, makes her do it every day, asking things of her that she cannot give.

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This is why it is so painful to watch her. Sure, there will be displays of dominance this week. Probably some number on steadfastness, an interesting trouser suit, some pre-scripted jokes about Jeremy Corbyn and Boris Johnson that will entertain virtually no one. There will probably be some listening, too, as whatever media training she has had since the election has been about trying to soften her expression, to make her appear more empathetic. Sometimes she even remembers to smile.

Still, though, she is basically un-interviewable. She does not answer a single question directly or reveal anything at all about an inner life. The emptiness is chilling. It may be a feminised insult to describe her as “broken” but no one who meets her seems able to make a human connection with her. She has always been this way. Once this marked her down as an efficient, no–nonsense grown-up, a kind of Margaret Thatcher mark II. But now she is at the head of a cabal of squabbling egomaniacs and her “personality” is a political problem.

The fundamental question of why she wants to be prime minister remains unanswered, while she sits tense and grimacing. She does not appear to have a grand vision for the country. Is it ambition that drives her? Is it just duty?

Her much-vaunted seriousness actually becomes an issue of trust. Does she ever take pleasure in being prime minister?

Her much-vaunted seriousness actually becomes an issue of trust. Does she ever take pleasure in being prime minister, in the same way that Thatcher or David Cameron seemed to? I am not being flip here. Nations like to see themselves reflected in their leaders. May, though, has looked relentlessly miserable from day one, a portrait of hollowed-out distress. She cannot energise or unify her party, or make it reach out to young people, while she remains so utterly disconnected from herself. Contrast that with Angela Merkel, and the twinkle when she gets her way, when she feels her own power. That’s a leader who is in contact with her own feelings.

In the couple of minutes that the average person might have seen of the Labour conference, they will have seen a good time being had by all, by recognisable human beings. The Tories are in power but they have lost the connection between the political and the personal. One of the things you would think they would be good at is making free-market capitalism sound fun. Even on that score, it feels as if May has given up the ghost.

There are no new ideas, there are no dreams – there is simply tweaking and briefing and an absolute refusal to engage with what is happening in this country and the rest of the world.

All of this is embodied in May visibly flinching at a direct question, in her babble of repetitive phrases that mean nothing. It is as if she is not really there. There is a vacancy at the top. The country knows that.

• Suzanne Moore is a Guardian columnist