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Liz Truss
Liz Truss was the shortest-serving Prime Minister of the United Kingdom, her 49 (or 50 counting inclusively) days in office easily beating George Canning's 118 (119 inclusive) days in 1827. (By inclusive counting, each of them was in office for 1 year.) Sources give various other names:
- Mary Elizabeth Truss
- Elizabeth Mary Truss
- official report of 2010 election in London Gazette: [8], 419
- official report of 2019 election in London Gazette: [9], 419
- official report of 2017 election on Borough Council of King’s Lynn & West Norfolk website: [10]
- official report of 2019 election on Borough Council of King’s Lynn & West Norfolk website: [11]
- official report in London Gazette of appointment as First Lord of the Treasury, 2022: [12]
- Hansard record of her swearing in as MP 2010: [13]
- Hansard record of her swearing in as MP 2015: [14]
- Hansard record of her swearing in as MP 2017: [15]
- Hansard record of her swearing in as MP 2019: [16]
- The Financial Times: [17] (non-free access)
- Elizabeth M. Truss
- marriage index: [18]
- Elizabeth Truss
- "official" list of former Prime Ministers: [19]
- official report of 2010 election on Borough Council of King’s Lynn & West Norfolk website: [20]
- official report of 2015 election on Borough Council of King’s Lynn & West Norfolk website: [21]
- URL of her own website: https://www.elizabethtruss.com/
- her email address given on that website
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. One of the offices she held was the old position of Lord Chancellor, of which she was the first female holder. 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 (this record has subsequently been beaten), and setting a new record of 7 non-white members, about twice the proportion in the population.
The tax-cutting policy on which she was elected leader came under heavy fire, not only from the Opposition, but in financial markets and her own party. She was forced to shelve most proposals, and she was forced to resign as party leader on 20 October, remaining as Prime Minister until her successor was chosen, formally resigning on the 25th.
In the next general election, in 2024, she lost her seat in the House of Commons, the first former Prime Minister to do so since MacDonald in 1935.
She is the fifth Prime Minister to serve under both a king and a queen, following Melbourne, Peel, Salisbury and Churchill, and the first Prime Minister to share the monarch's first name since 1837.
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