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Queen Elizabeth II meets new Prime Minister Liz Truss at her Balmoral fort in Scotland on Tuesday. The assembly represented the official handover from Boris Johnson to Truss, who was chosen as Conservative Celebration chief on Monday. Picture courtesy Royal Household/Twitter
Sept. 6 (UPI) — Liz Truss, a former accountant and 12-year veteran of Parliament, took over as British prime minister on Tuesday after a farewell speech by the outgoing Boris Johnson and assembly the queen at her fort in Scotland.
Truss, 47, assumed the highest management submit within the nation sooner or later after she was chosen by the ruling Conservative Party as its chief over the opposite candidate, Rishi Sunak.
The shift to Truss was made official when she met with Queen Elizabeth II at her Balmoral property in Scotland. As dictated by custom, Johnson had met with the queen first.
Truss is Britain’s fifteenth prime minister and solely the third lady to carry the submit, after Margaret Thatcher within the Nineteen Eighties and Theresa Could instantly earlier than Johnson.
The 2 leaders departed London in separate planes earlier than daybreak Tuesday, and Truss’s aircraft landed in Aberdeenshire after circling the airport for 20 minutes attributable to heavy fog.
Truss takes the helm at a time of considered one of Britain’s worst financial crises in current historical past, which is due primarily to the COVID-19 pandemic, Russia’s struggle in Ukraine and strain on markets worldwide.
Inflation rose to an all-time excessive of greater than 9% throughout the month of August across much of Europe, whereas Britain’s central financial institution raised rates of interest to curtail rising energy costs sparked largely by Russia’s struggle in Ukraine.
Liz Truss, 47, is the third lady to function British prime minister. She formally took over the submit from Boris Johnson throughout a standard handover ceremony on the queen’s Balmoral fort in Scotland. Picture by Neil Corridor/EPA-EFE
Later this week, Truss is expected to introduce a big package deal of power reforms in “a serious second” for the nation, stated Treasury chief Simon Clarke. The plan might embody a method to freeze heating and cooling payments after Russia lower off its primary gasoline pipeline to Europe final week.
Truss’ rise got here after a fierce two-month battle with a large area of 11 Conservative Celebration candidates to succeed Johnson, who introduced in July that he would step down following quite a few public scandals, most notably “partygate.”
She is standard amongst social gathering Conservatives for her powerful stance on chopping taxes and reining in authorities forms, but it surely’s not clear but how that can play with the mainstream public, whose wages are dissipating amid a coming recession.
Truss, a key participant in Johnson’s cupboard, was scheduled to deal with Britons afterward Tuesday earlier than selecting her cupboard leaders.
As a firebrand for the Liberal Democratic Celebration at Oxford College within the early Nineties, she as soon as known as for the monarchy to be abolished, however has since developed her political stance with comparisons to Thatcher.
In his farewell handle, Johnson vowed to present Truss his “most fervent help.”
“It is time for us to get behind Liz Truss and her staff and her program and ship for the folks of this nation,” he stated. “As a result of that’s what the folks of this nation need. That is what they want. And that is what they deserve.”
Johnson, who took over for Could in 2019, was accompanied on Tuesday by his spouse Carrie when he arrived at Balmoral. He hasn’t but given any indication of what the long run holds for him.
