Liz Truss has been named leader of the governing Conservative Party and Britain’s next prime minister on Monday, taking power at a time when the country faces a cost of living crisis, industrial unrest and a recession.
After weeks of an often bad-tempered and divisive party leadership contest that pitted Truss against Indian-origin Rishi Sunak, a former finance minister, Monday’s announcement triggered the beginning of a handover from Boris Johnson.
Truss has been declared the winner of the Conservative Party leadership election with 81,326 votes, defeating Rishi Sunak, who received 60,399 votes.
“We need to show that we will deliver over the next two years. I will deliver a bold plan to cut taxes and grow our economy,” Truss said after the result was announced.
“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.”
The voting by Tory members for their choice between Sunak and Truss which started early August closed on Friday evening.
Nearly 52 per cent said that Truss would make a “poor” or “terrible” prime minister, while 43 per cent said they did not trust her “at all” to deal with the issues of the expensive cost of living. A further 37 per cent of Britons believe she will be much the same as her predecessor.
The two contenders have gone through a postal ballot of all the Conservative members, numbering around 160,000 Tory electorate to replace the UK outgoing prime minister Boris Johnson.
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 front-runner 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 per cent in July.
Foreign minister under Johnson, Truss, 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 securing future fuel supplies.
