Liz Truss used to pretend “minor members” of her family had died to get out of media appearances, one of her former aides has claimed.

Kirsty Buchanan, who was a special adviser to the Prime Minister when she was Justice Secretary, said the fake fatalities included “aunts and cousins and things”.

However Ms Truss eventually ran out of excuses and had to appear on BBC Question Time, where she found herself on a panel with a man she loathed.

Ms Buchanan was speaking on the Whitehall Sources podcast.

She said: “Liz Truss, when I worked for her, she obviously didn’t like the media, so we used to spend quite a lot of time making up excuses and, you know, killing off minor members of her family so that she didn’t have to go on Question Time.

“We ran out of excuses to go on Question Time, so eventually we had to do it.

The Northern Echo: Liz Truss appears on Question Time in 2016Liz Truss appears on Question Time in 2016 (Image: NQ)

“Only minor people like aunts and cousins and things, I’m not talking about, you know, major members of the family

“Anyway, so we ended up on Question Time and she said to me, I don’t care who’s on the panel as long as it’s not X, and I’m not going to tell you who X is.

“And we turn up at the Green Room and there is the one person, the one person she didn’t want to go on a panel with, and she looked at me and if looks could kill…

“I don’t know if they did it on purpose because he’s a long time kind of baiter of hers.”

Ms Truss, who admitted during the Tory leadership campaign that she was not a polished public speaker, was Justice Secretary in 2016 and 2017.

An MP since 2010, she appeared on Question Time nine times between 2012 and 2019.

Ms Truss is due to face Labour leader Sir Keir Starmer and other politicial oppenents at PMQs at noon as her premiership hangs by a thread after the debacle of the reversed mini-budget and alarm among MPs at cuts.