Beautiful Virgin Islands

Wednesday, Aug 27, 2025

Everything you wanted to know about Liz Truss but were too afraid to ask

Everything you wanted to know about Liz Truss but were too afraid to ask

Swot up on Britain’s incoming prime minister as Boris Johnson heads for the exit.

Britain is about to get a new prime minister. Yep, again.

As the governing Conservatives pin their hopes on tax-cutting, free-trading, woke-bashing Foreign Secretary Liz Truss to succeed where Boris Johnson, Theresa May and David Cameron have all failed since 2016, POLITICO has a handy primer on the U.K.’s (latest) incoming prime minister so you can pretend you know what you’re talking about with friends.

The vital statistics


Let’s start with the basics. Truss is a Conservative. She’s 47 years old, and has been an MP for 12 years and a Cabinet minister for eight, serving under three prime ministers. Her current gig is foreign secretary, meaning she’s also the country’s point person for post-Brexit EU relations — so if you’re reading this in Brussels, you may already be rolling your eyes at this turn of events. She starts work Tuesday as Johnson exits stage left, knife wounds still healing.

The personal life


Truss is married to accountant Hugh O’Leary, with whom she has two daughters. The incoming U.K. leader was born in Oxford, and grew up in Scotland and then Leeds, in the north of England, attending a school she later accused of setting “low expectations” for its pupils. She also had a spell in Canada before belatedly settling into the tried-and-tested route to Westminster — a degree in philosophy, politics and economics at Oxford University.

The politics


Truss is seen as a libertarian and loves low taxes and small states. She co-wrote ‘Britannia Unchained,’ a 2012 book by newly-elected Tory MPs pitched as a wake-up call for low-productivity Britain. It dubbed U.K. workers “among the worst idlers in the world,” and took a swipe at young people for being “more interested in football and pop music” than their Indian counterparts.

Yet Truss has also proved to be a pragmatic shape-shifter throughout her career, getting stuck in to running several tricky government departments and morphing from bright-eyed Cameroon moderate to flag-waving champion of post-Brexit Britain. She wisely kept her hands squeaky clean during the brutal Conservative coup that called time on scandal-hit Johnson, refusing to openly criticize him — yet managing to avoid being seen as part of the inner Johnson circle.

The policies


Truss comfortably saw off her rival Rishi Sunak and wooed the Conservative grassroots with promises to slash taxes “from day one,” scrap outdated EU laws still on the British statute book, and tackle what she’s called a “woke” culture in the U.K. civil service. One MP supportive of Truss told POLITICO last month they think Britain “could be heading for a 1980s-style culture shock” under the incoming prime minister, while a key ally, Jacob-Rees Mogg, has called for a full rethink of “whether the state should deliver certain functions at all.”

Truss has insisted she’s no Margaret Thatcher clone (although that hasn’t stopped her stealing the late Conservative prime minister’s best outfits).

You can read every one of her 149 policy pledges here, thanks to tireless POLITICO intern Noah Keate.

The in-tray


Truss takes the helm at a tumultuous time for Britain, which is battling soaring energy costs (in part ramped by the war in Ukraine) and teetering on the brink of a full-blown recession. The country has been gripped by a wave of strikes, hobbling everything from the railways to the ports. Oh, and there’s a cross-Channel “shitstorm” brewing over water companies dumping sewage into the sea.

On the political front, Truss is tasked with turning around the fortunes of a Conservative Party that’s been in power for 12 years, and his has seen its popularity fall off a cliff this year as Johnson fluffed the response to a host of scandals. No pressure, Liz.

The inner circle


A new prime minister usually means a new top team, and key figures expected to get major jobs in a Truss government include fellow Britannia Unchained scribe Kwasi Kwarteng, an instinctive small-state Conservative who looks all-but certain to become Truss’ top finance minister. Friend, karaoke-lover and fellow Cabinet minister Therese Coffey, currently holding the work and pensions brief, has been tipped for a senior role. Rees-Mogg, a die-hard Brexiteer who effectively lives in a castle and yet really hates working from home, looks like the frontrunner to become business and energy secretary.

Defeated rival and former chancellor Sunak may or may not be offered a job — but don’t expect the bloke who called Truss’s economic plan “immoral” to leap at the chance, either way.

The Brexit conversion


Perhaps the most striking shift in what we might generously describe as Truss’ pragmatic journey to the top has been her switch from worried Remainer to avid Brexit-backer. Ahead of Britain’s fateful EU referendum in 2016, Truss — then environment secretary — argued passionately for the country to stay in the bloc, warning that going it alone would be a “hugely retrograde step” on environmental protection and could usher in a “wasted decade” for the U.K. economy. Oh, and there’s always a tweet.

Fast forward to 2017 and Truss had already recanted, saying the “massive economic problems” she feared Britain would face on its own had “not come to pass.” It’s a position she’s stuck to ever since and, happily, the British economy is doing just fine, thank you very much.

The maverick diplomat


As U.K. foreign secretary, Truss hasn’t exactly been afraid to ruffle a few feathers. She’s shepherded through controversial legislation which the EU says risks ripping up the hard-won protections for Northern Ireland in the Brexit deal (unnerving Brussels and Washington in the process), and caused outrage in China by suggesting the West should be prepared to arm Taiwan. On the leadership campaign trail, she earned the ultimate badge of honor for a prospective British leader: pissing off the French.

Aussie conservatives who love her no-nonsense, free-trading talk are a bit more enthusiastic, while Baltic states spooked by the threat of Russia see a leader who’ll stand up for them when the going gets tough.

The art of the deal


Truss made her name signing a raft of post-Brexit trade deals, elevating a middle-ranking Cabinet job into a daily chance to fly the flag for Britain. As international trade secretary, Truss soared in the favorability ratings with grassroots Conservatives and bagged a string of rollover trade deals aimed at retaining post-Brexit links with key trading partners.

But her approach has not been without controversy: critical MPs accused her of being too focused on her own profile, with some even labelling her Department for International Trade (DIT) the “Department for Instagramming Truss,” based on her prolific output on the social network. Scrutiny of the deals she actually negotiated as trade secretary has only increased since she left the job, with agriculture and farming groups accusing her of ignoring warnings about the toll of opening the door to cheap imports from Australia and New Zealand.

The pork markets thing


Perhaps surprisingly, Britain’s next prime minister was previously best known for … shouting about pork (stay with us here). Truss has long embraced a somewhat goofy public persona, and gave an, erm, highly enthusiastic 2014 speech to the Conservative Party faithful as environment secretary, which included possibly the most rapturous use of the phrase “pork markets” ever recorded. She also won applause for gravely informing her audience with a steely gaze: “We import two-thirds of our cheese: that is a disgrace!”




Truss is also remembered for taking on rural Conservatives in her battle to become the MP for South West Norfolk. The group of political opponents, dubbed the “Turnip Taliban” due to their supposed militancy, grumbled that Truss’ colorful personal life (she’d had an affair with a married MP) was unbecoming for their prospective political representative. But Truss — whose allies claimed a whiff of sexism among her critics — ultimately prevailed.

Truss’ real dark secret


Brace yourselves: she used to be a Liberal Democrat. Yep, the small-state libertarian had a misspent youth as a representative of Britain’s tree-hugging, socks-and-sandals-wearing, center-left opposition party, telling its 1994 conference that she’d be up for abolishing the monarchy. That should at least give her something to chat about with the queen when she’s invited to form a new government at Balmoral Tuesday lunchtime.



Newsletter

Related Articles

Beautiful Virgin Islands
0:00
0:00
Close
Spotify’s Strange Move: The Feature Nobody Asked For – Returns
Manhunt in Australia: Armed Anti-Government Suspect Kills Police Officers Sent to Arrest Him
China Launches World’s Most Powerful Neutrino Detector
How Beijing-Linked Networks Shape Elections in New York City
Ukrainian Refugee Iryna Zarutska Fled War To US, Stabbed To Death
Elon Musk Sues Apple and OpenAI Over Alleged App Store Monopoly
2 Australian Police Shot Dead In Encounter In Rural Victoria State
Vietnam Evacuates Hundreds of Thousands as Typhoon Kajiki Strikes; China’s Sanya Shuts Down
UK Government Delays Decision on China’s Proposed London Embassy Amid Concerns Over Redacted Plans
A 150-Year Tradition to Be Abolished? Uproar Over the Popular Central Park Attraction
A new faith called Robotheism claims artificial intelligence isn’t just smart but actually God itself
Deputy Prime Minister Angela Rayner Purchases Third Property Amid Housing Tax Reforms Debate
HSBC Switzerland Ends Relationships with Over 1,000 Clients from Saudi Arabia, Lebanon, Qatar, and Egypt
Sharia Law Made Legally Binding in Austria Despite Warnings Over 'Incompatible' Values
Italian Facebook Group Sharing Intimate Images Without Consent Shut Down Amid Police Investigation
Dutch Foreign Minister Resigns Amid Deadlock Over Israel Sanctions
Trump and Allies Send Messages of Support to Ukraine on Independence Day Amid Ongoing Conflict
China Reels as Telegram Chat Group Shares Hidden-Camera Footage of Women and Children
Sam Nicoresti becomes first transgender comedian to win Edinburgh Comedy Award
Builders uncover historic human remains in Lancashire house renovation
Australia Wants to Tax Your Empty Bedrooms
MotoGP Cameraman Narrowly Avoids Pedro Acosta Crash at Hungarian Grand Prix
FBI Investigates John Bolton Over Classified Documents in High-Profile Raids
Report reveals OpenAI pitched national ChatGPT Plus subscription to UK ministers
Labour set to freeze income tax thresholds in long-term 'stealth' tax raid
Coca‑Cola explores sale of Costa coffee chain
Trial hears dog walker was chased and fatally stabbed by trio
Restaurateur resigns from government hospitality council over tax criticism
Spanish City funfair shut after serious ride injury
Suspected arson at Ilford restaurant leaves three in critical condition
Tottenham beat Manchester City to go top of Premier League
Bank holiday heatwave to hit 30°C before remnants of Hurricane Erin arrive
UK to deploy immigration advisers to West Africa to block fake visas
Nurse who raped woman continued working for a year despite police alert
Drought forces closures of England’s canal routes, canceling boat holidays
Sweet tooth scents: food-inspired perfumes surge as weight-loss drugs suppress appetites
Experts warn Britain dangerously reliant on imported food
Family of Notting Hill Carnival murder victim call event unmanageable
Bunkers, Billions and Apocalypse: The Secret Compounds of Zuckerberg and the Tech Giants
Ukraine Declares De Facto War on Hungary and Slovakia with Terror Drone Strikes on Their Gas Lifeline
Animated K-pop Musical ‘KPop Demon Hunters’ Becomes Netflix’s Most-Watched Original Animated Film
New York Appeals Court Voids Nearly $500 Million Civil Fraud Penalty Against Trump While Upholding Fraud Liability
Elon Musk tweeted, “Europe is dying”
Far-Right Activist Convicted of Incitement Changes Gender and Demands: "Send Me to a Women’s Prison" | The Storm in Germany
Hungary Criticizes Ukraine: "Violating Our Sovereignty"
Will this be the first country to return to negative interest rates?
Child-free hotels spark controversy
North Korea is where this 95-year-old wants to die. South Korea won’t let him go. Is this our ally or a human rights enemy?
Hong Kong Launches Regulatory Regime and Trials for HKD-Backed Stablecoins
China rehearses September 3 Victory Day parade as imagery points to ‘loyal wingman’ FH-97 family presence
×