Foreign secretary Liz Truss has become the third female prime minister of the United Kingdom.
She was named leader of the governing Conservative Party yesterday to take power as Britain’s next prime minister at a time when the country faces a cost-of-living crisis, industrial unrest and a recession.
This came after weeks of a bad-tempered and divisive party leadership contest that pitted Truss against Rishi Sunak, a former finance minister, Monday’s announcement triggered the beginning of a handover from Boris Johnson.
Other women before her in that officer were Margaret Thatcher, who was in office between 1979 and 1990 and Theresa May, who was prime minister from 2016 to 2019.
Johnson was forced to announce his resignation in July after months of scandal and he will travel to Scotland to meet Queen Elizabeth on Tuesday to officially tender his resignation. His successor will follow him and be asked to form a government.
Long the frontrunner in the race to replace Johnson, Truss became the Conservatives’ fourth prime minister since a 2015 election.
Over that period the country has been buffeted from crisis to crisis, and now faces what is forecast to be a long recession triggered by sky-rocketing inflation which hit 10.1 percent in July.
Truss, aged 47, has promised to act quickly to tackle Britain’s cost-of-living crisis, saying that within a week she will come up with a plan to tackle rising energy bills and secure future fuel supplies.
Speaking in a TV interview on Sunday, she declined to give details of the measures she said will reassure millions of people who fear they will be unable to pay their fuel bills as winter approaches.
She declined to comment on a report that her energy plan could exceed 100 billion British pounds ($115 billion), but the legislator tipped to be her finance minister, business minister Kwasi Kwarteng, wrote on Monday that the government could afford to borrow more to fund support for households and businesses.
Truss signalled during her leadership campaign she would challenge convention by scrapping tax increases and cutting other levies that some economists say would increase inflation.
Meanwhile, global leaders have sent their congratulations to Liz Truss – but in the international media, there have been snarkier remarks, too as the UK Foreign Secretary becomes the Third Female Prime Minister after Margaret Thatcher and Theresa May.
“She has gone to see the Queen,” said Russian television presenter Ivan Trushkin. “If she [the Queen] recognises her of course.”
In France, meanwhile, she has been branded not the Iron Lady – which was former UK PM Margaret Thatcher’s nickname – but the Iron Weathercock.
This is a reference to Ms Truss’s changing views on the UK leaving the European Union – she went from opponent before the 2016 referendum, to supporter afterwards, saying in July that “some of the portents of doom didn’t happen”. It’s believed the term was first coined in Les Echos in July – but has since caught on among some commentators.
Like Les Echos, Italy’s Corriere della Sera compared Truss to Thatcher – but described the new leader’s speeches as more “robotic”.
The first leader to congratulate publicly Truss was German Chancellor Olaf Scholz.
“In these challenging times,” he wrote in English, London and Berlin would carry on cooperating as “partners and friends”.
Warm words also came from EU Commission President Ursula von der Leyen – but not without an apparent reference to the Brexit-related Northern Ireland protocol.
“I look forward to a constructive relationship, in full respect of our agreements,” she said in a tweet.
India’s Prime Minister Narendra Modi wished Liz Truss the “very best”, Poland’s Mateusz Morawiecki said he was “very, very pleased” by her commitment to Ukraine, and the Irish Taoiseach Micheal Martin said he looked forward to working with Britain’s new PM.
As expected, the reaction from Russia has been more negative, with presenters on Gazprom-owned NTV describing Truss’s election as a “catastrophe” for the UK. Russia’s foreign ministry, which has previously been highly dismissive of Liz Truss, is yet to react formally to the news.
Nigeria’s former vice president and presidential candidate of the opposition Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), Atiku Abubakar, has congratulated the new prime minister of the United Kingdom, Liz Truss, saying that UK has once again proven the resilient power of democracy.
He described Truss’ election as the leader of the Conservative Party in the UK as a ‘hard-fought process’.
Atiku, who took to his verified Twitter handle on Monday to celebrate the new UK Prime Minister, said he equally look forward to an enhanced partnership of the new leadership of the Conservatives Party with Nigeria and other African countries in the areas of human capital development, trade and strengthening democracy and the integrity of elections.
Born in Oxford, her family moved to Paisley in Scotland when she was four, then Leeds where she went to a state secondary school. She has said her mother took her on marches protesting against nuclear weapons. She was originally a Liberal Democrat. While she was at Oxford University she campaigned for the Lib Dems, and at the party conference in 1994 she spoke in favour of abolishing the monarchy. She switched to the Conservatives while still at university. She’s 47, married and has two daughters. She’s worked for three former prime ministers.
