Wikisage, the free encyclopedia of the second generation, is digital heritage
Liz Truss
Liz Truss is the Prime Minister of the United Kingdom. Sources disagree on her full name:
- Mary Elizabeth Truss
- Elizabeth Mary Truss
She was born on 26 July 1975 in Oxford. Her father was a professor of mathematics. The family moved about, and she attended various schools in England, Scotland and Canada. She is the first Prime Minister to have attended a comprehensive school.
She attended Oxford University, where she belonged to the Liberal Democrat Party, but she switched to the Conservatives in 1996, the same year she graduated.
She has been married to accountant Hugh O'Leary since 2000. They have two daughters.
She was elected to the House of Commons in 2010, given a junior ministerial post in 2012, and made a cabinet minister and Privy Counsellor in 2014. On 5 September 2022 she was elected leader of the Conservative Party, and she was appointed Prime Minister the following day in one of the last official acts of Queen Elizabeth II, who died two days later.
The cabinet she appointed scored high marks for "diversity", equalling the previous records of 8 women, and setting a new record of 7 ethnic minority members, about twice the proportion in the population.
The tax-cutting policy on which she was elected leader has come under heavy fire, not only from the Opposition, but in financial markets and her own party. She has already been forced to shelve some proposals, and there is speculation that she may be forced to go further, or even resign.
She is the fifth Prime Minister to serve under both a king and a queen, following Melbourne, Peel, Salisbury and Churchill.