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Liz Truss will become Britain’s next prime minister after beating Rishi Sunak in the bitterly fought Conservative leadership contest.
The foreign secretary, who won 81,326 votes of Tory members to the former chancellor’s 60,399, takes over from Boris Johnson, who was ousted by his own MPs earlier this summer.
But the euphoria of victory will quickly give way to the hard reality of the economic challenges ahead with the country gripped by a cost of living crisis leaving families struggling to pay their energy bills this winter.
Truss has said she will reveal plans to support households within a week of taking office, with allies understood to be discussing a £100bn package that could include freezing energy bills. She has already pledged to reverse a national insurance rise even though it disproportionately benefits the well-off.
In her acceptance speech Truss praised “my friend” Boris Johnson. She said: “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.”
She promised a “bold plan” to cut taxes and grow the economy and “deliver on the energy crisis, dealing with people’s energy bills but also dealing with the long-term issues we have on energy supply”.
An emergency budget is expected within the first month to set out how she will bolster the economy amid sustained low growth, soaring inflation, flat-lining wages and the very real prospect of recession.
