Liz Truss’s Reign Was Shorter Than The Time It Took To Elect Her

British Prime Minister Liz Truss — in office for just 45 days — resigned today amid economic turmoil in the country. Her term will go down as the shortest so far — shorter than the time it took to elect her.

The race for Tory leadership had started after Boris Johnson stepped down from the Prime Minister post on July 7. Ms Truss, formerly the country’s foreign secretary, was declared the leader of the Conservative party on September 5 — a span of 60 days.  

Ms Truss had beaten Rishi Sunak to the top post with a series of promises to boost the economy, which included an emergency budget and tweaks in tax rules.

But the economic programme, drawn up earlier this month, had sent shockwaves through the markets and divided her Conservative Party.

Finance minister Kwasi Kwarteng had announced a “mini-budget” which involved massive new borrowing to pay for sweeping tax cuts — including for top-earners — and scrapping a cap on bankers’ bonuses.  The tax cuts were the centrepiece of her economic plan to convince the party that she was the best candidate to replace Mr Johnson.

The loan was for an energy scheme worth $67 billion over the next six months.

The market reaction drove the government into a series of embarrassing U-Turns and divided the Conservative Party. As part of the damage control measures, Ms Truss sacked Mr Kwarteng last week and named Jeremy Hunt as his replacement.

Six days on, Ms Truss stepped down — hours after declaring that she was “a fighter not a quitter”.

“Given the situation, I cannot carry out the mandate for which I was elected…I will remain as Prime Minister until a successor has been chosen,” she told the media in a short address today.