For Truss admirers, her campaign is built on longstanding instincts and sincere beliefs. (File)
London:
The UK’s next prime minister, Liz Truss, takes power as the Conservative Party’s low-tax, traditional euro leader, promising a boost to economic growth.
Her position is in stark contrast to how she started out, as the pro-Liberal Democrat daughter from a progressive family who opposes the monarchy and Brexit.
Her self-styled lifelong political “journey” has led to criticism that she lacks real beliefs and prioritizes power over ideology.
But her outspoken style, calling for a smaller state and advocating free trade proved popular with grassroots Conservatives.
Truss, 47, has campaigned on a platform of tax cuts and leveling of bureaucratic “orthodoxy”, especially in the finance ministry where she used to work.
“For a populist party in recent years, she can express herself more authentically, more casually,” says Tim Bale, of Queen Mary University of London.
“She sees herself as – despite having been in power for eight years – almost outside that establishment and therefore the kind of person you can rely on to represent you against the so-called that ‘blob’.”
Thatcher heir?
For Truss admirers, her campaign is built on longstanding instincts and sincere beliefs.
“She’s always been outspoken,” said Mark Littlewood, head of the Institute for Economic Affairs and a former member of the Oxford University Liberal Democrats club with Truss.
“You really need to understand that Elizabeth Truss is a libertarian of the free market,” he told AFP.
Truss becoming the UK’s third female prime minister inevitably leads to comparisons with the first: Margaret Thatcher.
As Secretary of State for the past year, Truss has been photographed riding atop a tank and wearing a Russian fur hat in Moscow, resembling the Tory icon.
But she dismissed any hint of a deliberate visual conspiracy.
However, like “Iron Lady”, she is faced with the daunting task of leading the UK out of decades of high inflation, a cost-of-living crisis and industrial action. increasingly serious.
Financial Times political commentator Robert Shrimsley believes Truss is the heir not of Thatcher but of Boris Johnson’s doctrine of “pastryism” – the “man who loves to eat cake and eat it”.
She was the choice of a Conservative who “didn’t like hard choices”, he wrote, in contrast to her defeated opponent, former finance minister Rishi Sunak, who campaigned for fiscal discipline. .
‘Human hand grenade’
As Secretary of State, Truss spearheaded a series of trade deals following the UK’s divorce from the European Union.
Truss has deemed her initial opposition to Brexit a mistake, despite growing evidence of its economic costs, and has repositioned herself as a champion of justice. .
Issues surrounding new trade deals in Northern Ireland are causing friction with Washington and Brussels and could prove problematic early in her term.
On the international stage, she also vigorously opposed Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
But her initial encouragement of the British who fought there was criticized by the military, and sparked criticism that she lacked judgment.
Former top Johnson aide Dominic Cummings likened her to a “human hand grenade”, and some MPs have accused her of being overly self-centered.
Truss admits he’s not “the most polished presenter.” She’s still mocked online for a bizarre speech she gave as environment minister in 2014, giving her hearty support for British cheese and pork.
Lib Dem to Tory
Truss grew up first in Scotland and then in an affluent suburb of Leeds, northern England.
Her mother was a nurse, teacher, and nuclear disarmament campaigner who brought her to protests, and her father was a left-wing math professor.
Some have described her former International Trade Department as the “Instagramming Truss Division” because of her prolific results on social media.
During the Tory leadership’s campaign, Truss criticized her Leeds school for cultivating “low expectations”.
That sparked a backlash from teachers, contemporaries and locals, who accused her of creating an “insulting” fairy tale to curry favor with Tory rights.
Despite the school’s alleged failures, she went on to Oxford, where – like Sunak – she graduated in philosophy, politics and economics.
At Oxford, she was president of the university’s Liberal Democratic Party branch. At the party’s national convention in 1994, she gave a speech calling for the abolition of the monarchy.
Truss admitted during the campaign: “I was a controversial person in my teens.
By going to school on her own, the switch to the Conservatives shocked her parents, but she says her faith has grown.
A recent Times profile said her parents were frustrated when she passed the Tory ranks and was unable to discuss their daughter with others.
After graduating from college, Truss worked in the energy sector, including Shell and telecommunications, before entering politics a decade later.
She was a local councilor in south-east London for four years and became an MP in 2010, part of a new generation of women and minority candidates encouraged by then-party leader David Cameron.
He faced opposition from local parties in the Southwest Norfolk agricultural constituency, after it was reported that Truss had had an extramarital affair with a fellow Tory colleague.
Her critics have been dubbed the “Radish Taliban”.
Truss’ marriage to an accountant persists in the episode. They have two daughters.
(Except for the title, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from an aggregated feed.)
