Tories Choose Liz Truss As UK Prime Minister

Britain’s Conservative Party has chosen Foreign Secretary Liz Truss as the party’s new leader, putting her in line to be confirmed as prime minister.

Photo Insert: The Conservatives Party has put its trust in Foreign Secretary Liz Truss to lead them.

Truss’s selection was announced Monday in London after a leadership election in which only the 180,000 dues-paying members of the Conservative Party were allowed to vote, Sylvia Hui reported for the Associated Press (AP).

Truss beat rival Rishi Sunak, the government’s former Treasury chief, by promising to increase defense spending and cut taxes, while refusing to say how she would address the cost-of-living crisis.

Truss received 81,326 votes to Sunak’s 60,399. Queen Elizabeth II is scheduled to formally name Truss as Britain’s prime minister on Tuesday. The ceremony will take place at the queen’s Balmoral estate in Scotland, where the monarch is vacationing, rather than at Buckingham Palace.

Long the front runner in the race to replace Johnson, Truss, if appointed, will become the Conservatives' fourth prime minister since a 2015 election. Over that period the country has been buffeted from crisis to crisis, and now faces what is forecast to be a long recession triggered by sky-rocketing inflation which hit 10.1% in July.

Foreign minister under Boris Johnson, Truss, 47, has promised to act quickly to tackle Britain's cost of living crisis, saying that within a week she will come up with a plan to tackle rising energy bills and securing future fuel supplies, Elizabeth Piper reported for Reuters.

Truss came from a leftwing family, with a mathematician for a father and a nurse and teacher for a mother. She was with the centrist Liberal Democrats when she was studying in Oxford, the New York Times reported. Later, she jumped ship, joined the Tories and served in government.

Truss, 47, will become the Conservatives' fourth prime minister since a 2015 election. Over that period the country has been buffeted from crisis to crisis, and now faces what is forecast to be a long recession triggered by sky-rocketing inflation which hit 10.1% in July.

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