“Sincerity – if you can fake that, you’ve got it made.” Whoever said it (George Burns, Groucho Marx, take your pick) they were on to something. If you’re in public life, and you want respect, popularity, electoral success, looking like you mean what you say is a pearl of great price.

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The list of politicians judged authentic – Nicola Sturgeon, Boris Johnson, Mo Mowlam, Canada’s Justin Trudeau – is a roll call of those who have bypassed the usual deadening filters and made straight for people’s hearts and minds. When voters lament the rise of the Identikit, careerist politician, they’re not thinking of Mhairi Black or Alan Johnson. Authenticity can be a tactic, as that cynical opening quote shows. But if you’re able to deploy it, you have a headstart on your rivals.

So how is it done? For the pollster Peter Kellner, one test is whether people give straight answers to straight questions in interviews. “My own advice to politicians is that when you don’t know the answer, say you don’t know, and when you don’t want to answer, rather than pretend and sound shifty, say you’re not going to and give a reason.”

Easier said than done. If you’re on the front bench, defending a collective position, you may come across as evasive despite your best efforts. Kellner says a few politicians have managed to walk this line with their reputation for frankness intact – he mentions David Blunkett. A far larger number fail to do so. Hence the slippery Today programme interview, and the shrug of “they’re all the same” from weary listeners.

Facebook Twitter Pinterest Mo Mowlam with then Northern Ireland secretary Peter Mandelson in 1999. Photograph: Peter Morrison/AP

There’s a message here for a political class desperate to engage a jaded electorate. But it’s a complex one. “Without authenticity you can’t change the political weather,” says Kellner. “If you are authentic you have a chance, but lots of other things have to happen.”

The problem with Jeremy Corbyn, for example, isn’t necessarily that he’s too leftwing. He scores highly on authenticity, honesty and consistency. But, Kellner says, research suggests he’s not seen as competent. Principled? Yes. Able to make the compromises necessary to win difficult political battles? The public remains unconvinced.

At the opposite pole is David Cameron – a weathervane, to use Tony Benn’s formulation, an arch-pragmatist who changes his mind when it’s expedient. But he is seen as tough and effective. And in a sense, he also projects authenticity: he is what he is, a man born to rule, at ease as prime minister; someone who says what he thinks, even if the thoughts are shallow. Despite Labour’s strong performance in this month’s Oldham byelection, it’s depressingly clear what more English voters prefer.

If Blunkett is someone whose authenticity endured, even after many years in power, what’s his secret? It’s about being true to yourself, he tells me. And, crucially, being comfortable with the tasks you’re assigned. Blunkett was lucky enough to be put in charge of education, an area he was genuinely interested in. Even then, he found the tension between collective responsibility and his own will difficult. “You’re not only defending an agreed policy line, you’re also not trying to completely pee off your colleagues to the point where your political power diminishes and you can’t achieve the things you want to do.”

How did the last Labour leader handle it? “I think Ed [Miliband] was uncomfortable from the very beginning,” Blunkett says. The reasons? They include “the real trauma of dealing a blow to his brother”, whom he defeated in the party leadership election. But fundamentally, Blunkett believes Miliband would have been better suited to just being an MP.

Facebook Twitter Pinterest David Blunkett was education minister under Tony Blair. Photograph: Scott Barbour/Getty

And in the most recent Labour leadership competition, authenticity played a pivotal role. Yvette Cooper, Liz Kendall and Andy Burnham weren’t able to put their hearts into the contest because of the position the party had boxed itself into. “I know Andy as a really solid, straight-talking guy who didn’t come across anywhere near what he would like to have done,” says Blunkett. “And I think it was about caution, lack of confidence in putting forward a much more radical agenda. That enabled Jeremy to become the voice of authenticity.”

Given that Corbyn was resoundingly endorsed as leader, isn’t that a title he can fairly lay claim to? “I think he’s got a bigger struggle to be the authentic Jeremy as a leader of a party than he ever had as Jeremy the rebel. Because that was and is Jeremy. We have someone who has the authenticity, but is in danger of finding himself in entirely the wrong job.”

Facebook Twitter Pinterest Ed Miliband at the 2014 Labour conference. Photograph: David Gadd/Sportsphoto Ltd/Allstar

Outside Corbyn’s immediate circle, the parliamentary Labour party still has a reputation for failing to be true to itself, for sidestepping questions or giving “politicians’ answers”. To change that it will need to nurture authentic voices, and put them in jobs where they can be themselves.

One name mentioned again and again is Lisa Nandy. Seema Malhotra is brought up too. Then there’s Jess Phillips, whose searing comments about Corbyn in an interview with Owen Jones may have been more candid than was wise. What’s clear is that the “speak-your-weight machine” brigade, as Kellner calls them, will never be popular enough to carry the party forward. Message discipline is always going to be important, but so too is shedding that reputation for caginess. Corbyn’s tenure is a turning point, but those who come after him will seal the party’s fate.

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In the US, authenticity has been offered up as an explanation for Donald Trump’s extraordinary popularity. This, more than anything else, is a warning that speaking plainly, on its own, is no guarantee of fitness for office. And you can pull off sounding authentic while being patently evasive. Sonia Purnell, Boris Johnson’s biographer, reckons that’s his speciality. “He rarely answers the question, but he avoids it with jokes and humour and by making that direct connection to the audience. It’s as if he’s saying, ‘Oh no, look at me I’m being pounced on by this horrible interviewer again.’” He addresses his audience as friends, she says, and so people feel they’re part of his circle. It’s a clever ruse. “He’s not actually someone who has much empathy one-to-one, he’s not someone who has a great many friends.”

Facebook Twitter Pinterest Boris Johnson after the general election count at Brunel University, London. Photograph: Andrew Matthews/PA

Politicians judged inauthentic can still win. Hillary Clinton has been criticised for being “very calculated about how much of her real self she lets show”, in contrast to her Democrat rival, Bernie Sanders. But thanks to machine support and Republican disarray, she is odds-on to be president. In Germany, Angela Merkel has cemented her place in history despite a reputation for stiltedness. And those who privilege being themselves above all else often end up on the fringes – outliers, the awkward squad, eccentrics. The characters who tempt the producers of Big Brother and I’m a Celebrity.

Like holy fools, though, they remind us that people thirst for more than competence and worldly sophistication. By itself it may not be enough. But the evidence all points one way: authenticity is an especially potent ingredient in the recipe for political success. If it comes naturally, you should count yourself lucky. And if it doesn’t? You can always try faking it.