Last week, Liz Truss became Britain’s fourth prime minister in six years.

Although in Japan such a rapid turnover in leadership is not exceptional, in Britain the door to No. 10 Downing St. has not usually revolved so quickly.

As another new prime minister has taken the helm, it is an opportune time to examine whether there is a "right" type of person to lead a country and why Britain’s recent prime ministers have been so woefully lacking in the skills needed to fulfill their role.

Historian and political biographer Antony Seldon argues that the ideal prime minister needs seven essential skills: physical energy, intellect, temperament, ruthlessness, opportunism, populism, persuasion, oratory and storytelling. Despite possessing many of these qualities, Boris Johnson lacked the vision and discipline to be an effective prime minister. You have to go back 100 years, to "Welsh Wizard" David Lloyd George to find a prime minister as unsuitable, controversial and indifferent to rules.

Johnson’s premiership showed the fragility of the U.K.’s political system, which in the absence of a codified constitution, relies on the expectation that the prime minister will be a "good chap" (regardless of sex) who accepts the limits of his or her office.

All prime ministers occasionally bend the truth for political expediency, but Johnson is the first to treat the British state as his own adventure playground, his behavior unbound by rules, truth or decency.

Johnson’s short tenure was both fatuous and yet consequential. His disregard for institutional norms and international law have made Britain harder to govern at home and less trusted abroad. Barely a month after taking office, Johnson announced plans to suspend Parliament for five weeks to prevent scrutiny of his Brexit deal negotiations. Eventually the supreme court ruled his move was unlawful. Johnson survived the fiasco, eventually "getting Brexit done" in an eleventh-hour deal in December 2020 that the Office for Budget Responsibility believes is responsible for £100bn a year in lost economic output for the U.K..

Even after he left office, Johnson remains under investigation by the Parliamentary Privileges Committee for allegedly misleading Parliament about COVID-19-rule breaking parties held at No. 10 Downing St. during the height of the pandemic. Johnson is already the first prime minister to have broken the law while in office.

Liz Truss’s record during the previous administration indicates that she is a true heir to Johnson and that the era of post-truth politics will not end with him.

Throughout her predecessor’s scandal-filled premiership, Truss remained in Johnson’s Cabinet as he repeatedly trashed the Constitution. When in June more than 50 of her ministerial colleagues resigned after it emerged that Johnson knowingly appointed a sexual predator as a government whip, Liz stayed loyal, perhaps hoping to capture the votes of Tory Party members outraged at Johnson’s dismissal in the leadership election would follow.

Is this an unfair accusation against Britain’s new prime minister? Not based on her Johnsonian past record of opportunism and self-promotion.

Truss went to Roundhay school in Leeds, which she has repeatedly portrayed as letting children down with "low expectations, poor educational standards and a lack of opportunity," despite the school sending her and many other students to Oxford University. At Oxford, Truss joined the Liberal Democrats. At the party’s annual conference, aged 19, she demonstrated her propensity for drawing attention and bucking rules by calling for a vote on abolishing the monarchy, despite assuring party leaders that she would remit the motion. Soon after graduating she joined the Conservative Party, winning the safe Tory seat of South West Norfolk in 2009.

In the 2016 EU referendum she campaigned enthusiastically for Remain. Yet after the referendum, she reinvented herself as one of the government’s most ardent Brexiters. Her U-turns have led colleagues to question whether she believes in anything beyond playing to the gallery to fulfill her own ambitions.

Why is the nation led by Churchill, Thatcher and Attlee now selecting such feckless leaders?

Partly it is to do with how prime ministers are chosen. Only two of the last six prime ministers came to office at a general election. Prime ministers who takeover part way through a Parliament only need to appeal to their party’s narrow electorate. Since party activists are more ideologically motivated than average voters, this leads to ideologues with questionable leadership skills winning out over more moderate, experienced and temperamentally suitable candidates (think of former Chancellor and Cabinet veteran Ken Clarke losing the Conservative leadership to Iain Duncan Smith in 2001).

Another problem is the narrow range of individuals entering politics. Post-war politicians were people with broad and diverse experiences. Harold Macmillan, who was prime minister from 1957 to 1963 followed a familiar path via Eton and Oxford to Downing St., but he’d also fought in the Battle of the Somme. Margaret Thatcher famously lived above her family grocer’s shop during the depression and worked as a chemist and lawyer before entering Parliament.

Today’s politicians have less wide-ranging experiences, often already working in Westminster as researchers, political journalists or consultants before entering Parliament. Motivated more by ambition than public service, these career politicians see little value in institutions beyond proving a stepping-stone for their own advancement, supporting candidates for prime minister who will advance their careers regardless of their suitability for office.

Boris Johnson’s premiership was marked by impatience with institutional checks and balances. As prime minister he watered down the independence of the Electoral Commission and appointed his cronies, including a Russian-born oligarch with family connections to the Kremlin and FBS, to the House of Lords in defiance of advice from the Appointments Commission and the security services.

Changes in media technology are also contributing to Britain’s leadership deficit. Social media allows politicians to connect with voters while dodging a grilling from professional journalists.

Boris Johnson rarely submitted himself to political scrutiny, refusing to take part in televised interviews and debates during the 2019 general election, instead appealing to the electorate via Twitter and by feeding favorable stories to the Tory-leaning press.

During her campaign to replace Johnson, Liz Truss also swerved one-on-one televised interviews. Her silence on the cost-of-living crisis, her unfunded tax cut plans and her unimpressive record as a Cabinet minister all went unscrutinized.

Britain is facing its greatest set of political, security and economic challenges since 1945. Her past record suggests Liz Truss lacks the necessary skills to face the daunting task ahead of her. Perhaps before long Britain will have yet another new prime minister?

Tina Burrett is Associate Professor of Political Science at Sophia University.