As a child, Liz Truss marched in demonstrations against Conservative PM Margaret Thatcher. As an adult, she came to admire Britain’s first female leader — and now she is about to enter No. 10 Downing St. with a Thatcherite zeal to transform the U.K.
FILE - British Foreign Secretary Liz Truss arrives for a cabinet meeting at 10 Downing Street in London, Tuesday, July 19, 2022. Britain's new leader, Liz Truss, is the child of left-wing parents who grew up to be an admirer of Conservative Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher. Now she is taking the helm as prime minister herself, with a Thatcherite zeal to transform the U.K.
To critics, Truss is an inflexible ideologue whose right-wing policies won’t help Britain weather the economic turmoil set off by the pandemic, Brexit and Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. During the leadership campaign, Truss emphasized her relatively modest background. But she riled some former classmates and teachers when she said students at her school were “let down by low expectations, poor educational standards and a lack of opportunity.” The school’s alumni include academics, judges and several other members of Parliament.
She won the safely Conservative seat after a bump on the way — some local Conservatives were outraged when it was revealed she had had an affair with another MP when both were married to other people. Truss won over her critics, and her marriage survived. She and husband Hugh O’Leary, an accountant, have two teenage daughters.
In Britain’s 2016 referendum on whether to leave the European Union, Truss backed the losing “remain” side, though she says she was always a natural euroskeptic. Since the vote, she has won over Brexiteers with her uncompromising approach to the EU. Truss has sometimes suggested the frequent comparisons to Thatcher are sexist, but at other times she has encouraged them. She has posed in a British Army tank in Eastern Europe, evoking an image of Thatcher during the Cold War. In a televised leadership debate, Truss sported a pussy-bow blouse just like one Thatcher used to wear.
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