Liz Truss, 47, assumed office replacing Boris Johnson Tuesday afternoon at Balmoral Castle in Scotland, when Queen Elizabeth II formally asked her to form a new government
Liz Truss became U.K. prime minister Tuesday and immediately
confronted the enormous task ahead of her amid increasing pressure to curb soaring
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prices, ease labor unrest and fix a health care system burdened by long waiting
lists and staff shortages.
At the top of her inbox is the
energy crisis triggered by Russia's invasion of Ukraine, which threatens to
push energy bills to unaffordable levels, shuttering businesses and leaving the
nation's poorest people shivering in icy homes this winter.
Truss, who refused to spell out her energy strategy during
the two-month campaign to succeed Boris Johnson, now plans to cap energy bills
at a cost to taxpayers of as much as 100 billion pounds ($116 billion), British
news media reported Tuesday. She is expected to unveil her plan on Thursday.
"You must know about the cost of living crisis in
England, which is really quite bad at the moment," said Rebecca Macdougal,
55, who works in law enforcement, outside the Houses of Parliament.
"She's making promises for that, as she says she's
going to deliver, deliver, deliver. But we will see in, hopefully, the next few
weeks there'll be some announcements which will help the normal working
person."
Truss, 47, took office Tuesday afternoon at Balmoral Castle
in Scotland, when Queen Elizabeth II formally asked her to form a new
government in a carefully choreographed ceremony dictated by centuries of
tradition. Johnson, who announced his intention to step down two months ago,
formally resigned during his own audience with the queen a short time earlier.
First time at Balmoral
It was the first time in the queen's 70-year reign that the
handover of power took place at Balmoral, rather than Buckingham Palace in
London. The ceremony was moved to Scotland to provide certainty about the
schedule, because the 96-year-old queen has experienced problems getting around
that have forced palace officials to make decisions about her travel on a
day-to-day basis.
Truss became prime minister a day after the ruling
Conservative Party chose her as its leader in an election where the party's
172,000 dues-paying members were the only voters. As party leader, Truss
automatically became prime minister without the need for a general election
because the Conservatives still have a majority in the House of Commons.
But as a national leader selected by less than 0.5% of
British adults, Truss is under pressure to show quick results.
Ed Davey, leader of the opposition Liberal Democrats, on
Tuesday called for an early election in October — something that Truss and the
Conservative Party are highly unlikely to do since the Tories are slumping in
the polls.
"I've listened to Liz Truss during the Tory leadership
(campaign) and I was looking for a plan to help people with their skyrocketing
energy bills, with the NHS crisis and so on, and I heard no plan at all,"
he told the BBC. "Given people are really worried, given people are losing
sleep over their energy bills, businesses aren't investing because of the
crisis, I think that's really wrong."
Johnson took note of the strains facing Britain as he left
the prime minister's official residence at No. 10 Downing Street for the last
time, saying his policies had left the government with the economic strength to
help people weather the energy crisis.
Always colorful, he thinly disguised his bitterness at being
forced out.
‘Booster rocket’
"I am like one of those booster rockets that has
fulfilled its function," Johnson said. "I will now be gently
re-entering the atmosphere and splashing down invisibly in some remote and
obscure corner of the Pacific.''
Many observers expect Johnson to attempt a political
comeback, though he was cyrptic about his plans. Instead, the man who studied
classics at the University of Oxford backed Truss and
comparedhimself to Cincinnatus, the Roman dictator who relinquished power and
returned to his farm to live in peace.
"Like Cincinnatus, I am returning to my plow," he
said.
Johnson, 58, became prime minister three years ago after his
predecessor, Theresa May, failed to deliver Britain's departure from the
European Union. Johnson later won an 80-seat majority in Parliament with the
promise to "get Brexit done."
But he was forced
out of office by a series of scandals that culminated in the resignation of
dozens of Cabinet secretaries and lower-level officials in early July. That
paved the way for Truss, a one-time accountant who was first elected to the
House of Commons in 2010.
Many people in Britain are still learning about their new
leader.
Unlike Johnson, who made himself a media celebrity long
before he became prime minister, Truss rose quietly through the Conservative
ranks before she was named foreign secretary, one of the top Cabinet posts,
just a year ago.
Shocking energy bills
She is expected to make her first speech as prime minister
Tuesday afternoon outside No. 10 Downing Street.
Truss is under pressure to spell out how she plans to help
consumers pay household energy bills that are set to rise to an average of
3,500 pounds ($4,000) a year — triple the cost of a year ago — on Oct. 1 unless
she intervenes.
Rising food and energy prices, driven by the invasion of
Ukraine and the aftershocks of COVID-19 and Brexit, have propelled U.K. inflation
above 10% for the first time in four decades. The Bank of England forecasts it
will hit 13.3% in October, and that the U.K. will slip into a prolonged
recession by the end of the year.
Train drivers, port staff, garbage collectors, postal
workers and lawyers have all staged strikes to demand that pay increases keep
pace with inflation, and millions more, from teachers to nurses, could walk out
in the next few months.
Truss, a low-tax, small-government conservative who admires
Margaret Thatcher, says her priority is cutting taxes and slashing regulations
to fuel economic growth. Critics say that will fuel further inflation while
failing to address the cost-of-living crisis. The uncertainty has rattled money
markets, driving the pound below $1.14 on Monday, its weakest since the 1980s.
In theory, Truss has time to make her mark: She doesn't have
to call a national election until late 2024. But opinion polls already give the
main opposition Labour Party a steady lead, and the worse the economy gets, the
more pressure will grow.
Foreign policy crises
In addition to Britain's domestic woes, Truss and her new
foreign policy crises, including the war in Ukraine and frosty post-Brexit
relations with the EU.
Truss, as foreign secretary, was a firm supporter of
Ukraine's resistance to Russia. She has said her first phone call with a world
leader will be to President Volodymyr Zelenskyy.
Truss has also pledged to increase U.K. defense spending to
3% of gross domestic product from just over 2% — another expensive promise.
But she's likely to have much cooler conversations with EU
leaders, who were annoyed by her uncompromising stance as foreign secretary in
talks over trade rules for Northern Ireland, an unresolved Brexit issue that
has soured relations between London and Brussels. With the U.K. threatening to
breach the legally binding divorce treaty, and the EU launching legal action in
response, the dispute could escalate into a trade war.
"I think she's got a big, challenging job ahead of
her,'' Robert Conway, 71, an electronics manufacturer, said in London.
"Hopefully she'll bring that, a new team, a new start, but it's going to
be a challenging job."
On Monday, the 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.
Soaring cost of living
She faces immediate pressure to deliver on her promises to
tackle the cost-of-living crisis walloping the U.K. and an economy heading into
a potentially lengthy recession.
The two-month leadership contest left Britain with a power
vacuum at a time of growing discontent amid spiraling energy and food costs.
Prime Minister Boris Johnson has made
nomajor policy decisions since he announced he was stepping down on July 7,
and officials insisted that measures to address the energy cost crisis would be
deferred until his successor is in place.
Meanwhile tens of thousands of workers have gone on strike
to demand 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
forecast 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."
Truss has won the support of many Conservatives with her
zeal in rolling back state intervention and slashing taxes. Both she and her
rival Sunak have spoken of their admiration for Margaret Thatcher, who was
prime minister from 1979 to 1990, and her free-market, small-government
economics.
Economy to dominate
But it's not clear how Truss's right-wing brand of
conservatism, which played so well with party members — who represent far less
than 1% of the U.K.'s adult population — will go down with the wider British
public, especially those most in need of government relief to afford essentials
like heating their homes this winter.
Truss has promised to act "immediately" to tackle
soaring energy bills, but declined to give any details so far.
"The Conservative Party members wanted that message of
tax cutting. The country, I would guess, less so," said Bronwen Maddox,
director of London's Chatham House think tank.
"At the moment you've got people deeply rattled, many
very, very afraid going into a year where all they can see are rising
costs," Maddox added. "Until she's got an answer on that, she doesn't
have a claim to the popularity of the country, I think."
While the economy is certain to dominate the first months of
the new premier's term, Truss will also have to steer the U.K. on the
international stage in the face of Russia's war in Ukraine, an increasingly
assertive China and ongoing tensions with the European Union over the aftermath
of Brexit — especially in Northern Ireland.
Australia, New Zealand and Japan issued congratulations to
Truss early Tuesday and looked forward to strengthening their ties with the
U.K. under her government. "She has been a staunch supporter of the UK's
'tilt' to the Indo-Pacific and played a central role in advancing our historic
Free Trade Agreement," New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern said.
Ethics scandals
Truss will be the U.K.'s fourth Conservative prime minister
in six years, entering Downing Street following Johnson, Theresa May and David
Cameron.
Johnson was forced to resign after a series of ethics
scandals that peaked in July, when dozens of cabinet ministers and lower-level
officials quit in protest over his handling of allegations of sexual misconduct
by a senior member of his government.
Both Truss and Sunak were key players within Johnson's
Cabinet, though Sunak resigned in the last days of Johnson's time in office.
A Truss government may not sit well with many because it
reminds voters too much of Johnson's misdeeds, said Steven Fielding, a
professor of political history at Nottingham University.
"She's basically been elected as Boris Johnson 2.0 by
Conservative members — she's made it very clear that she is a loyal Boris
Johnson supporter," he said. "I think she's going to find it very
difficult to disentangle herself from the whole Johnson shadow."
Truss and Sunak were the final two candidates whittled from
an initial field of 11 leadership hopefuls.
Under Britain's parliamentary system of government, the
center-right Conservative Party was allowed to hold an internal election to
select a new party leader and prime minister without going to the wider
electorate. A new general election isn't required until December 2024.
(Text and images by AP)
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