Liz Truss

Mary Elizabeth Truss (born 26 July 1975) is a British politician who served as Prime Minister of the United Kingdom and Leader of the Conservative Party from September to October 2022. On her fiftieth day in office, she stepped down amid a government crisis, making her the shortest-serving prime minister in British history. The member of Parliament (MP) for South West Norfolk since 2010, Truss previously held various Cabinet positions under prime ministers David Cameron, Theresa May and Boris Johnson, lastly as foreign secretary from 2021 to 2022.

Truss studied philosophy, politics and economics at Merton College, Oxford, and was the president of the Oxford University Liberal Democrats. In 1996, she joined the Conservative Party. She worked at Royal Dutch Shell and Cable & Wireless and was the deputy director of the think tank Reform. After two unsuccessful attempts to be elected to the House of Commons, she became the MP for South West Norfolk at the 2010 general election. As a backbencher, she called for reform in several policy areas including childcare, mathematics, education and the economy. Truss co-founded the Free Enterprise Group of Conservative MPs and wrote or co-wrote a number of papers and books, including ''After the Coalition'' and ''Britannia Unchained''.

Truss was the parliamentary under-secretary of state for childcare and education from 2012 to 2014 before Cameron appointed her secretary of state for the environment, food and rural affairs in a cabinet reshuffle. Although she campaigned for the UK to remain in the European Union, Truss supported Brexit following the outcome of the 2016 referendum. Following Cameron's resignation in 2016, his successor Theresa May appointed her secretary of state for justice and lord chancellor, making Truss the first woman to serve as lord chancellor in the office's thousand-year history; in the aftermath of the 2017 general election, she was demoted to chief secretary to the Treasury. After May announced her resignation in May 2019, Truss supported Johnson's successful bid to become Conservative leader and prime minister. He appointed Truss secretary of state for international trade and president of the Board of Trade in July and she was subsequently given the additional role of minister for women and equalities in September. Johnson promoted Truss to foreign secretary in the 2021 cabinet reshuffle; during her time in the position, she led negotiations on the Northern Ireland Protocol and the UK's response to the Russian invasion of Ukraine.

In September 2022, Truss defeated Rishi Sunak in a leadership election to succeed Johnson, who had resigned because of an earlier government crisis, and was appointed as prime minister by Elizabeth II two days before the monarch's death; her government's business was subsequently suspended during a national mourning period of ten days. In response to the rising cost of living and increased energy prices, her ministry announced the Energy Price Guarantee. The government then announced large-scale tax cuts and borrowing, which led to financial instability and were largely reversed. Facing mounting criticism and loss of confidence in her leadership, Truss announced her resignation as leader of the Conservative Party on 20 October. Sunak was elected unopposed as her successor, and succeeded her as prime minister the following day. As at 2023, she remains in the House of Commons as a backbencher.

Early life and education

Mary Elizabeth Truss was born on 26 July 1975 at the John Radcliffe Hospital in Oxford, England. She was the second child of John and Priscilla Truss (); the year prior to Truss's birth, their first son, Matthew, had died. Truss was known by her middle name, ''Elizabeth'', from early childhood, with her father—a professor of pure mathematics at the University of Leeds—using it regularly, which she preferred; after being given a badge with "Mary" on it on her first day of school, Truss asked her teacher that it be changed. She later described her parents' politics as being "to the left of Labour"; her mother, a nurse, was a member of the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament. When Truss stood for election to Parliament as a Conservative in 2010, her mother agreed to campaign with her, but her father declined to do so. Her parents divorced in 2003.

In 1977 Truss and her parents moved to Warsaw, but returned to Britain after John and Priscilla found it "grim". After living briefly in Kidderminster, Worcestershire, the family moved to Paisley in Scotland when Truss was four years old, where she attended West Primary School. In 1985 they moved south to Leeds, where Truss attended Roundhay School; she later said in 2022 that at the school she "saw kids... being let down", a claim which was criticised as inaccurate by former Roundhay pupils. When Truss was 12 she and her family spent a year in Burnaby, British Columbia, where she attended Parkcrest Elementary School whilst her father taught at Simon Fraser University. Truss praised the Canadian curriculum and the attitude that it was "really good to be top of the class", which she contrasted with her education at Roundhay.

Truss's parents had initially wanted her to study at the University of Cambridge, but Truss instead elected to go to Oxford in what her biographers, Cole and Heale, call a "bout of teenage rebellion". She applied to Merton College but was instead pooled to the all-women's St Hilda's College; annoyed, she then complained to both colleges, after which she was accepted by Merton and began her studies there in 1993. Truss read philosophy, politics and economics and graduated in 1996. During her time at university, Truss was active in the Liberal Democrats. She became the president of the Oxford University Liberal Democrats in her first year and a member of the national executive committee of Liberal Democrat Youth and Students (LDYS) in 1995. During Truss's previous, unsuccessful bid for the LDYS executive, the party's leader, Paddy Ashdown, said she was "a good debater and is utterly fearless". During her time as a Liberal Democrat, Truss supported the legalisation of cannabis and the abolition of the monarchy and campaigned against the Criminal Justice and Public Order Act 1994. However, by November 1995, Truss had become critical of the Liberal Democrats, as she "realised the Tory Party was saying quite sane things"; in her last year at the university, she resigned from the LDYS. By 1996, Truss had joined the Conservative Party.

Career

From 1996 to 2000 Truss worked for Royal Dutch Shell, living in Lewisham and Greenwich and qualifying as a Chartered Management Accountant. In 2000, Truss was employed by Cable & Wireless and rose to the position of economic director before leaving in 2005; one of her colleagues there, the Labour peer George Robertson, said that Truss "had a passion for politics... she asfresh minded, enthusiastic and the Tory Party needed people like that". In January 2008, after losing her first two elections, Truss became the deputy director of Reform, a centre-right think tank, where she advocated for more focus on countering serious and organised crime and higher standards in schools and action to tackle what Reform perceived as the UK's "falling competitiveness". She co-authored ''The Value of Mathematics'', ''Fit for Purpose'', ''A New Level'', ''Back To Black'' and other reports.

Council and parliamentary candidatures

Whilst working at Shell, Truss served as the chair of the Lewisham Deptford Conservative Association from 1998 to 2000, having been introduced to the branch by her friend and later Conservative MP Jackie Doyle-Price. During this time, at a reception at the Greenwich Conservative Association, Truss met her future husband, Hugh O'Leary, whom she married in 2000 and with whom she has two daughters: Frances (born 2006) and Liberty (born 2008). Truss unsuccessfully stood for election twice in Greenwich London Borough Council: for Vanbrugh ward in 1998 and Blackheath Westcombe in 2002. The deputy leader of Greenwich Conservatives, Graeme Coombes, recalled in 2022 that "russsaid n 1998she was hoping to stand for Parliament... she was destined for bigger and better things". However, Alex Grant, the candidate who had defeated Truss in 2002, called her "largely invisible during the campaign". In the 2006 council election, Truss was elected for Eltham South, but did not seek re-election to the council in 2010, standing down the day she became an MP.

At the 2001 general election Truss was selected for the safe Labour seat of Hemsworth, West Yorkshire, coming a distant second but achieving a 3.2 per cent swing to the Conservatives, which was considered impressive by her party colleagues. The election saw the Conservatives make a net gain of one seat, which was considered a disappointment; the party leader William Hague subsequently resigned, with Truss supporting the former defence secretary Michael Portillo's unsuccessful leadership campaign.

In January 2005 Sue Catling, the parliamentary candidate for the Calder Valley constituency, was forced to resign by the local Conservative Association because of an affair with the association's chairman; Catling claimed that the members of the party that had opposed her were sexist and said that she was "accused of everything except murder and paedophilia". Truss, who was selected as the candidate for the seat, narrowly lost to the Labour incumbent after an active Conservative campaign which ''The Yorkshire Post'' described as " Blitzkreig". Beginning in 2004, Truss embarked on an 18-month affair with the Conservative MP Mark Field, which ended shortly after the following year's election.

Following the 2005 general election David Cameron replaced Michael Howard as leader, and Truss was added to the party's A-List, a list of potential Conservative candidates; in October 2009 she was selected for the constituency of South West Norfolk by members of the local Conservative Association, winning over 50 per cent of the vote in the first round of the final against 5 other candidates, including the future deputy prime minister Thérèse Coffey. Shortly after her selection, some members of the constituency association objected to Truss's selection because of her failure to declare her affair with Field. ''The Mail on Sunday'' was the first to report on the affair, and party members claimed to have been misled over Truss's " skeleton in the cupboard". A motion was proposed to terminate Truss's candidature; the proponents of Truss's deselection were branded the "Turnip Taliban" by Conservative Party officials and the press, including by the ''Mail'', a reference to stereotypes about Norfolk being a county of farmers. There was also controversy over the fact that Truss was not from Norfolk, with some in the association asking for a local candidate and saying that she had been "parachuted in". On 16 November, the motion was put to the association: following both sides making their arguments, including an "impassioned" speech from Truss, it was defeated by 132 votes to 37.

Backbencher (2010–2012)

Truss was elected as an MP in the 2010 general election, which saw 148 other Conservatives become MPs for the first time; many of what ''The Independent'' described as the "golden generation" would later reach high ranks in government. The Conservatives did not reach an overall majority and entered into a coalition government with the Liberal Democrats, with Cameron becoming prime minister. Following her election to Parliament, Truss campaigned for issues relating to her constituency, including the retention of the Tornado GR4 airbase at RAF Marham in her constituency; the replacement of the old aircraft with around 150 new F-35 strike fighters; the conversion of the A11 west of Thetford into a dual carriageway, which was completed in 2014; and preventing a waste incinerator being built in King's Lynn. Truss co-founded the Free Enterprise Group (FEG)a grouping of over 30 Thatcherite Conservative MPsin October 2011; the month prior, she had co-authored ''After the Coalition'' with some of the people that would later join the FEG: Priti Patel, Kwasi Kwarteng, Dominic Raab and Chris Skidmore. The book advocated for a number of policies, including a reduction in the top rate of tax to 40 pence per pound and the introduction of a carbon tax to reduce pollution. On the publication, Truss wrote:

Another book by the same authors, ''Britannia Unchained'', was published in September 2012. The book attracted controversy for claiming that "the British are among the worst idlers in the world. We work among the lowest hours, we retire early and our productivity is poor". In 2022, Truss stated that the authors had each written a different chapter of the book; Raab had written the chapter which contained that claim.

Truss soon became well known amongst members of Parliament in Norfolk for her frequent photo op pupils. Early in her tenure as justice secretary, in response to a question on what advice she would give young women, she replied simply "be good at maths". Truss criticised "ivingmedia studies the same value as further maths" and suggested in 2011 that students should have to sit GCSEs for "5 traditional academic subjects".

Education under-secretary (2012–2014)

In September 2012 Truss was appointed as parliamentary under-secretary of state for education and stepped back from the leadership of the FEG, with Kwarteng taking her place. Truss was pleased with her appointment, and praised Michael Gove, the secretary of state for the department; she also formed a friendly rivalry with the future health secretary Matt Hancock. In January 2013, Truss wrote a white paper''More Great Childcare''in which she proposed increasing the maximum number of children childminders could look after at a time from three to four, as a means of reducing childcare costs. The press, including Conservative-leaning papers like ''The Daily Telegraph'' and ''The Times'', were largely hostile to the plan. The former claimed that prices would not fall; the latter claimed that "her appointment signal eda rapid deregulation of the sector"; and the ''Guardian'' columnist Polly Toynbee challenged Truss to demonstrate how to care for so many children on her own. Following a negative response from trade unions and childminders, Truss met with the deputy prime minister, Nick Clegg, who told her that "some of this is fine" but the maximum childminder increase went "much too far", and advised her to revise the proposal; Truss ignored Clegg and pushed ahead with the plan, angering Clegg, who then blocked the proposals. Truss also announced proposals to reform A-levels by concentrating exams at the end of two-year courses and said that the UK should attempt to "out-educate" countries in Asia.

Environment secretary (2014–2016)

In July 2014 during a cabinet reshuffle, Truss was appointed secretary of state for environment, food and rural affairs; the changes made the Cabinet one third women. Truss was originally to be made a minister of state, but Cameron changed his mind on the morning of the reshuffle. Truss's predecessor Owen Paterson "stormed out" of Cameron's Commons study when told he was to be dismissed; nevertheless, he gave her his phone number and offered his support. Paterson was dismissed partly because of his culling plans for badgers with tuberculosis, which Truss later supported. Truss's early actions at the department included setting up a "food crime unit" to prevent incidents similar to the 2013 horse meat scandal, approving planning for the Thames Tideway Tunnel and development of Flood Re, a scheme designed to insure homes at a high risk of flooding.

During her two years in the department, Truss launched a ten-year strategy to counter falling bee populations, approved the limited temporary lifting of a European Union ban on the use of two neonicotinoid pesticides and cut subsidies for solar panels on agricultural land. In March 2015 Truss was one of two cabinet ministers to vote against the government's proposal to mandate plain packaging for cigarettes. When she had been asked previously about the issue during a constituency meeting, Truss said "when it comes to things like this, I take a more libertarian approach... I don't know if it's the government's role to regulate this".

At the Conservative Party conference in September 2014 Truss made a speech in which she said "we import two thirds of our cheese. That is a disgrace" and "in December, I'll be in Beijing, opening up new pork markets". Four days after Truss delivered the speech, parts of the video were featured on the satirical panel show '' Have I Got News For You''; the awkward, stilted delivery led her to be mocked and clips of the speech went viral online. During the 2016 referendum on leaving the European Union, Truss endorsed Remain, saying that the Conservatives had "a golden chance to reform Britain over the next few years" and to avoid "pendingthat time negotiating Britain's exit from the European Union". The referendum resulted in the defeat of Remain and Cameron's resignation; the home secretary Theresa May won the ensuing leadership election and subsequently became leader of the Conservative Party and prime minister.

Justice secretary and lord chancellor (2016–2017)

In July 2016, Truss was appointed as secretary of state for justice and lord chancellor in the first May ministry, becoming the first female lord chancellor in the office's thousand-year history. May's decision to appoint her was criticised by the minister of state for justice, Edward Faulks, who resigned from the government, questioning whether Truss would "have the clout to be able to stand up to the Prime Minister when necessary, on behalf of the judges". Other Conservative members of Parliament criticised Truss's appointment owing to her lack of legal experience; in response, Truss's supporters accused one of the MPs, Bob Neill, of "thinly veiled misogyny".

Before Truss's arrival, the budget of the Ministry of Justicewhich is responsible for the administration of British prisonshad been subjected to successive cuts under the coalition government. The cuts were blamed for the prisons' rising rates of violence owing to the consequential drop in prison officer numbers. Truss lobbied the chancellor of the Exchequer, Philip Hammond, for £104 million in order to hire an additional 2,500 officers, which Hammond reluctantly delivered. In November 2016, Truss was accused of failing to support the judiciary after three judges of the High Court were criticised by politicians and by the ''Daily Mail''which ran with the headline "Enemies of the People"for ruling against the government on whether Article 50—which would begin the process of leaving the EU—could be triggered without Parliament's approval. A former lord chancellor, Charlie Falconer, suggested that, like her immediate predecessors, Truss lacked legal expertise and called for her to be dismissed as justice secretary as her perceived inadequate response " ignalledto the judges that they have lost their constitutional protector". Truss denied she had failed to defend the judges, writing:

Chief secretary to the Treasury (2017–2019)

In June, following the 2017 general election, May demoted Truss from justice secretary to chief secretary to the Treasury, meaning she could attend cabinet meetings but was not a full member; Truss was enraged and called the demotion "incredibly unfair" and was, according to one of her friends, "seething for a good couple of days". Despite what Cole and Heale describe as her "knocked" confidence from the demotion, Truss soon began to contribute to the department, using it, according to a Treasury worker, "like her own personal think tank" by asking for research and advice on monetary policy. In her first few months there, she was largely left out of decision-making processes by Hammond, who was described by Kwarteng as "quite a closed, centrally controlling chancellor"; nevertheless, Truss and the chancellor were reported to have a good relationship. Beginning in December 2017, she developed an enthusiasm for cultivating her presence on Twitter and Instagram; Truss began to plan ministerial visits around photo op

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