Liz Truss

Liz Truss's premiership was meant to provide calm after the chaotic final months of Boris Johnson's tenure as PM. After a drawn-out leadership contest in the summer of 2022, Liz Truss was duly selected by members as leader of the Conservative Party and Johnson's replacement as Prime Minister.

Her premiership lasted only 49 days, making her the shortest-serving prime minister in British history. Her political opponents have accused her of "crashing the economy" and, in a bizarre subplot to her period in office, many in Britain associate her short time in office with a wilting supermarket lettuce. So what was that all about? Let's find out!

Liz Truss Background

Mary Elizabeth Truss was born on 26 July 1975 in Oxford. Her father taught pure mathematics at universities, and her mother was a teacher and a nurse. The family moved to Paisley in Scotland when Truss was four years old before moving to Leeds. When Truss was 12 years old, the family moved to British Columbia, where her father taught at Simon Fraser University for a year. Truss later claimed that the political orientation of her parents was "to the left of Labour "¹.

Truss studied Philosophy, Politics and Economics (PPE) at Merton College, Oxford, graduating in 1996. While at Merton, Truss was an active member of the Oxford University Liberal Democrats. She appeared at the Liberal Democrat Conference in 1994, giving a speech arguing for the abolition of the monarchy. In 1996, however, Truss joined the Conservative Party.

After graduating, Truss worked at Shell, where she qualified as a chartered management accountant, before moving to telecommunications firm Cable and Wireless in 2000, where she rose through the ranks to become Economic Director, leaving in 2005. in 2008 she became the deputy director of the conservative think tank Reform.

In the 2005 general election, Truss contested the Calder Valley seat in West Yorkshire, narrowly losing to the Labour incumbent. She was selected as the Conservative candidate for the Tory safe seat of South West Norfolk for the 2010 election. She was duly elected to parliament, increasing the conservative vote share by 3.4%.

Fig 1. Photo portrait of Liz Truss

Liz Truss MP

As an MP, Truss campaigned on a range of local and national issues. In 2011, Truss founded the Free Enterprise Group in parliament, bringing together 40 conservative MPs who supported neoliberal, free-market economic policies. Members of the group, including Truss, authored the book Britannia Unchained (2012), a political thesis critiquing Britain's lack of meritocratic and enterprising spirit and proposing Thatcherite, neo-liberal free market economics as a solution to the problem. The book was marketed as being authored by the rising stars of the conservative party by its publisher, with Kwasi Kwarteng, Priti Patel and Dominic Raab going on to be appointed to ministerial positions under Boris Johnson.

In July 2014, Truss was appointed Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs. Later that year, at the conservative party conference, she made an infamous speech where she noted, "We import two-thirds of our cheese; that is a disgrace". Truss' earnest but awkward delivery, and the less-than-rapturous applause that followed her statement, led to clips of this speech being widely shared online.

In 2016, Theresa May appointed Truss Secretary of State for Justice and nominated her as Lord Chancellor - a traditional ministerial role responsible for the proper functioning of the courts. After the 2017 election, May made Truss Chief Secretary of the Treasury, meaning she attended cabinet meetings but was not a full member. While in this role, Truss continued to build her public image as a free marketeer and supporter of deregulation and individual liberty. When Theresa May resigned in 2019, Truss considered standing for the party leadership before ultimately endorsing Boris Johnson. Johnson appointed Truss as Secretary of State for International Trade and later Minister for Women and Equalities. Truss's handling of the International Trade portfolio was controversial, as she allowed for the sale of items with a potential military application to Saudia Arabia when the courts had ruled the sale of arms to that country unlawful. Despite ongoing concerns, she later lifted the ban on arms sales to Saudi Arabia.

Liz Truss Foreign Secretary

Liz Truss was appointed Secretary of State for Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Affairs as part of a September cabinet reshuffle by Boris John in 2021. In December, Truss was also made the UK's chief negotiator with the EU. Soon after, Britain's foreign policy shifted to Russia's military build-up near Ukraine and the impending threat of war.

In talks with the veteran diplomat, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov, in February 2022, Truss appeared to confuse parts of sovereign Russian territory with areas in Ukraine that were under the control of Russian-backed separatists, attracting ridicule and criticism from Russia. When Russia eventually launched its invasion of Ukraine, Truss responded positively to an interview question about whether or not British citizens should travel to Ukraine to fight the Russians. This forced the Prime Minister's office to issue a clarification stating that the government didn't recommend Britons going to fight in Ukraine.

Fig. 2 Liz Truss with the President of Armenia, Armen Sarkissian, at COP 27 in Glasgow

Boris Johnson announced on 7 July 2022 that he would resign after months of controversy and facing crumbling political support. Johnson vowed to stay on until a new leader could be selected for the Conservative Party to replace him. A leadership contest was announced, which involved several rounds of voting by MPs on leadership contenders before the final two candidates - Rishi Sunak and Liz Truss - were balloted by party members in a process taking over two months to complete. Having won the backing of the party members, Truss was appointed leader of the conservative party and visited Queen Elizabeth II at Balmoral Castle in Scotland on 6 September, where she was asked to form a government.

Liz Truss Prime Minister

Truss returned to London immediately and appointed a new cabinet, including long-term ally and fellow free-marketeer Kwasi Kwarteng as Chancellor, James Cleverly as Foreign Secretary and Suella Braverman as Home Secretary. Truss' new cabinet was notable because, for the first time in British History, no white men were appointed to the four great offices of state (PM, Chancellor, Foreign Secretary and Home Secretary). Still, some conservative MPs felt the appointments were based more on loyalty than experience.

Two days after the cabinet appointments, Queen Elizabeth II died at Balmoral, and the country entered a period of mourning as preparations were made for the Queen's state funeral. Major policy announcements from the new Prime Minister were delayed until after the Queen's funeral on 19 September, despite the UK facing an increasingly pressing cost of living crisis due to the effects of the Russia-Ukrain War.

On 23 September, Chancellor Kwasi Kwarteng presented a new 'mini-budget' outlining the government's economic policies. The mini-budget cut the basic income tax rate, reversed the previous government's plan to increase national insurance payments, and cut taxes for the highest earners in the country. These tax cuts were to be funded by increased government borrowing.

Although the mini-budget intended to deliver on Truss's promise to party members to tackle economic challenges by stimulating growth, markets reacted negatively to the proposed increase in UK government borrowing, with the pound falling to its lowest-ever rate against the US dollar. Market turbulence was increased because the independent Office had not scrutinised the mini-budget for Budget Responsibility. Fears that the Bank of England might impose higher interest rates led to banks dropping mortgage products and an overall rise in the cost of borrowing to buy property.

The government's plans were widely seen as unwise, and Kwarteng was forced into a U-turn on the highest tax rate in early October, with Truss announcing on Twitter, "we get it, and we have listened "². Truss eventually sacked her Chancellor on 13 October, appointing Jeremy Hunt as his replacement, but she remained under intense pressure to resign herself.

Liz Truss Resignation

During Prime Minister's Questions on 19 October, Truss claimed she had no intention of resigning, saying famously, "I'm a fighter, not a quitter". At the same time, polling of Conservative Party members showed that most of them wanted her to quit. Voting intention polls showed that support for the conservatives had collapsed under Truss, with Labour holding a lead of over 20 percentage points. On 20 October, after 45 days in office, Liz Truss announced her resignation as Conservative Party leader and her intention to resign once a new leader had been selected.

Liz Truss Ideology

On economic issues, Liz Truss is committed to the principles of neoliberalism. She has long been a proponent of 'supply-side' economics, which argues that economic growth is best achieved by encouraging supply through cutting taxes, slashing regulations and reducing barriers to international trade.

Early in her parliamentary career, she aligned herself with other neo-liberal, free-marketeer MPs and used this and other platforms to criticise elements of British society for not being enterprising enough. Truss has expressed admiration for former conservative PM Margaret Thatcher and her Thatcherite economic policies, while Truss's own economic approach has been termed 'Trussonomics' by the British Press.

Truss is broadly liberal on social issues, although she has also criticised identity politics, cancel culture and some transgender rights.

Liz Truss Voting Record

Liz Truss supported Britain remaining in the EU ahead of the 2016 Brexit referendum but changed her position in the wake of the results and has since supported Brexit. She has generally been hawkish in foreign policy, voting in favour of military action against ISIS/ISIL.

On Environmental issues, Truss has a mixed voting record, generally voting against measures to tackle climate change but voting in favour of high-speed rail services.

On social issues, Truss has generally been liberal, having voted in favour of gay marriage, but has voted in favour of repealing the Human Rights Act of 1998.