At 47 years old Liz Truss She is currently the third female British Prime Minister after Margaret Thatcher as well as Theresa May. His foreign minister Boris Johnson won the race to succeed the former finance minister Rishi Sunak explicitly, but not with the overwhelming difference that opinion polls predict: from members conservatives 81,326 voted for Thras and 60,399 for Sunak. In her short speech after the announcement of the results, the winner of the competition categorically ruled out an early election, stressing that she would be judged for her actions in the 2024 general election. She decided to praise Boris Johnson, to whom she remained faithful throughout the previous period, accusing Sunak of betrayal. Outgoing prime minister who will formally tender his resignation Queen Elizabeth this morning at her summer home in Balmoral, Scotland, she responded with praise and called on the entire party to rally “100%” in support of her successor.

Liz Truss supported Rishi Sunak in the early stages of the internal party process that took place within the Tory caucus, as more MPs supported her rival. But when it came time for the party base to speak out, its strategy of fighting to rally the right-wing and larger wing of hardline conservatives on key issues like Brexit and immigration paid off. But even in the hot sphere of the economy, he firmly adhered to the dichotomy of “less taxes – less government”, often reminiscent of the essence and style of Margaret Thatcher.

Her course

He won the battle against Rishi Sunak by the narrowest margin of the Conservative leader in the internal party elections.

Nothing in her younger years Liz Truss foreshadowed that she would become the favorite of the die-hard Tories. The daughter of a math teacher and a nurse, she accompanied her leftist parents on marches for nuclear disarmament, where she learned to chant slogans against then Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher. At Oxford, where he studied philosophy, political science and economics, he became president of the Liberal Party, at whose conference he proposed the abolition of the monarchy and the legalization of cannabis. Having gone over to the side of the Tories, she saw in all this youthful stupidity. “We all make mistakes and get into adventures as teenagers. Others do it through sex, drugs and rock ‘n’ roll, and it’s my fault they’re liberals,” she said recently in a public confrontation with Sunak.

He showed similar flexibility in Brexit. In the 2016 referendum he campaigned for “Remain”, but under Johnson he turned with an unenlightened zeal, angering the Irish and other Europeans over the thorny issue of Northern Ireland. As foreign minister, he has been accused of blunders, such as when he publicly questioned whether Emmanuel Macron was a friend or foe of Britain, or when, in a meeting with his Russian counterpart Sergey Lavrov, he erroneously disputed that Rostov and Voronezh were Russian cities. From now on, she needs to be more careful.

Faced with big problems, no grace period

Brexit, the pandemic and the war in Ukraine have made Boris Johnson the prime minister of great crises, but the trials that await Liz Truss’ good morning on Downing Street are no less erased as the UK is admittedly in danger of accumulating crises, no less unprecedented in the past 40+ years.

The most acute problem at the moment is, of course, the energy crisis. The authorities’ latest estimate is that electricity costs in October will average £3,549 (€4,117) a year, up from £1,277 last year, and will rise to £6,000 next year. Food banks are now overflowing not with the unemployed and the homeless, but with families in distress, and the Financial Times warns that many people, especially the elderly, will die due to the health effects of the crisis this winter.

Liz Truss promised to submit a proposal to reduce energy costs within a week, while the possibility of establishing a “ceiling” on electricity is being discussed. At the same time, it is facing runaway inflation that eats away at household incomes on a daily basis: in July it was 10.1%, the highest among the G7 countries, and the economy is plunging into recession.

The new prime minister does not believe in benefits to support the incomes of the most vulnerable segments of the population and in the means of stimulating the economy through tax cuts for businesses and the public. But there are fears that such consumption-stimulating policies could fuel inflation and bring down public finances at a time when debt has risen above 100% of GDP.

At the same time, Liz Truss has to deal with the biggest wave of strikes in decades (railway workers, dock workers, healthcare workers, university workers, lawyers), workers reacting to the skyrocketing cost of living. To deal with social unrest, he has already said he will pass legislation that will make it harder for unions to strike. TUC General Secretary Frances O’Grady warned that there would be a strong response and ironically remarked that the percentage by which Truss was elected Prime Minister (including abstentions) was less than what she herself as Prime Minister had in mind. to force the unions to call a legal strike.

Foreign policy

In the realm of foreign policy, there are two major open issues with immediate potential domestic implications: the upcoming Brexit, most notably Northern Ireland’s customs regime, and the war in Ukraine, the continuation of which could call into question Popular support for sanctions against Russia. Truss’ supporters would like her to demonstrate the virtues of Margaret Thatcher in the face of so many and so serious problems. Others are more skeptical. The French newspaper Les Echos, for example, welcomed her election not with the title of Dame de Fer (Iron Lady), but … Girouette de Fer, that is, the iron cock of the roof, colloquially referred to as a windbreaker.