The candidates have been locking horns since Johnson’s resignation with Truss set to be new Prime Minister of the UK
Truss has polled poorly amongst voters, yet is popular among her Tory peers. She won the leadership bid with 81,326 votes to Sunak’s 69,399 as announced earlier this morning by Sir Graham Brady.
Ms Truss will take over from Boris Johnson as PM on Tuesday, and after being handed the keys to No. 10 at Balmoral, Ms Truss “will face one of the most difficult inheritances of any prime minister” in the past 50 years, warned former No. 10 chief of staff Gavin Barwell.
Truss wins with the lowest margin of any Conservative Leader ever, with just 57.4% of the party members casting their ballot for her.
Ms Truss says it is an honour to have been elected as party leader. She thanks the party staff “for organising one of the longest job interviews in history”.
She thanks her family, friends and supporters and naturally she pays tribute to her rivals, particularly Rishi Sunak. She says they have shown “the breadth and depth of talent in the Conservative party”.
She thanked ousted leader, “my friend Boris Johnson”.
“Boris, you got Brexit done. You crushed Jeremy Corbyn, you rolled out the vaccine. And you stood up to Vladimir Putin. You were admired from Kyiv to Carlisle.”
“Friends and colleagues, thank you for putting your faith in me to lead our great Conservative party, the greatest political party on Earth.
“I know that our beliefs resonate with the British people. Our beliefs in freedom, in the ability to control your own life, in low taxes, in personal responsibility.
“I know that’s why people voted for us in such numbers in 2019 and as your party leader I intend to deliver what we promised those voters right across our great country.”
Truss outlines how her leadership will look and take shape over the next year.
“During this leadership campaign, I campaigned as a Conservative and I will govern as a Conservative.
“And my friends, we need to show that we will deliver over the next two years.
“I will deliver a bold plan to cut taxes and grow our economy.
“I will deliver on the energy crisis, dealing with people’s energy bills, but also dealing with the long-term issues we have on energy supply.
“And I will deliver on the National Health Service.
“But we all will deliver for our country. And I will make sure that we use all the fantastic talents of the Conservative party, our brilliant members of parliament and peers, our fantastic councillors, our MPs, our MSPs, all of our councillors and activists and members right across our country. Because, my friends, I know that we will deliver, we will deliver and we will deliver.
“And we will deliver a great victory for the Conservative party in 2024. Thank you.”
And so on and so forth in that vein.
The leadership bid culmination is finally over, with Liz Truss as our new Prime Minister, dictated by the Tory Party Members and not the public as is the norm for any party government majority.
Truss will have an uphill battle; with an unpopular track record and an apathetic public to inspire, who’ve just endured potentially one of the lesser engagement of political shrewdness in the wheel of politics. The rat race has come to end an. Or only just begun.
Sunak tweeted a dejected but supportive, “Thank you to everyone who voted for me in this campaign. I’ve said throughout that the Conservatives are one family. It’s right we now unite behind the new PM, Liz Truss, as she steers the country through difficult times.”
Labour Leader Keir Starmer tweeted the mild mannered, “I’d like to congratulate our next Prime Minister Liz Truss as she prepares for office. But after 12 years of the Tories all we have to show for it is low wages, high prices, and a Tory cost of living crisis. Only Labour can deliver the fresh start our country needs.”
To be fair he’s only got limited characters.
Featured Image Credit: Rob Pinney/PA
Aspiring writer, loves visual art.
You must log in to post a comment.