Liz Truss has been elected as the Conservative Party’s new leader, the party announced Monday, and she will take office Tuesday as Britain’s new prime minister, after an audience with the Queen.
47-year-old Truss, who is currently foreign secretary, beat former Treasury chief Rishi Sunak after a leadership contest in which only about 170,000 dues-paying members of the Conservative Party were allowed to vote. Truss received 81,326 votes, compared with Sunak’s 60,399.
Source: reuters
Queen Elizabeth II is scheduled to formally appoint Truss as Britain’s prime minister on Tuesday. The ceremony will take place at the queen’s Balmoral estate in Scotland, where the monarch is spending her summer, rather than Buckingham Palace in London.
Truss will be taking office amidst a strike of tens of thousands of workers demanding better pay to keep up with relentlessly rising costs. Inflation is above 10% for the first time since the 1980s, and the Bank of England has forecasted that will reach a 42-year high of 13.3% in October. That’s largely driven by soaring energy bills, which will jump 80% for the average household starting next month.
“I will deliver a bold plan to cut taxes and grow our economy. I will deliver on the energy crisis, dealing with people’s energy bills, but also dealing with the long-term issues we have on energy supply,” Truss told party members after she was elected.
“I know that our beliefs resonate with the British people: Our beliefs in freedom, in the ability to control your own life, in low taxes, in personal responsibility,” she added. “I know that’s why people voted for us in such numbers in 2019 and as your party leader I intend to deliver what we promised those voters right across our great country.”
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