Current Affairs » Liz Truss elected as Britain’s new Prime Minister

Liz Truss elected as Britain’s new Prime Minister

The head of government in a nation with a parliamentary or semi-presidential political system is the prime minister, also known as the premier. In such systems, the “first” or most significant minister, the prime minister, must maintain a majority in the legislature to continue in power. Most nations with prime ministers have two administrators, the head of state and the head of government. The prime minister is legally chosen by the head of state, who also chooses the other cabinet members.

Key takeaways

  • British financial aid for consumer energy bills has lagged behind that of other important European countries, which opposition legislators blame on a dysfunctional “zombie” administration. 
  • Concurrently, the Conservative Party controlled its national election. 
  • The government introduced a 15 billion pound support package in May to help households with their energy expenses as part of its 37 billion pounds cost-of-living support programme.
  •  And over 52 billion euros have been set aside by Italy this year to help its people. 
  • In France, there is a 4% cap on increases in electricity prices. 
  • German officials also disclosed on Sunday that they would spend a minimum of 65 billion euros to shield consumers and companies from rising inflation.

Britain's prime minister

Monday saw Liz Truss defeat Rishi Sunak as British prime minister. Additionally, she was chosen to lead the ruling Conservative Party. When the nation deals with a widening fiscal imbalance, labour unrest, and recessionary concerns, Truss will take over as Boris Johnson’s replacement. After months of unrest, Johnson was compelled to step down as prime minister early this year. On Tuesday, he will fly to Scotland to present Queen Elizabeth with his letter of resignation. Truss will need to establish a government after he follows.

Truss, Johnson’s top contender to succeed him, has since won the general elections and is now the party’s fourth prime minister. Since then, the nation has faced tragedy after the catastrophe and is currently dealing with what is anticipated to be a protracted recession brought on by rising inflation..

According to media sources, 47-year-old Truss pledged to act rapidly to resolve Britain’s crisis amid rising living costs. She pledged that within a week, she would devise a plan to deal with the rising energy cost and ensure future fuel supplies. She declined to discuss the plans in more detail during a Sunday TV appearance, but she insisted that they would ease the concerns of millions of people concerned they won’t be able to pay their fuel costs as winter approaches.

Report about Liz Truss

She remained silent when it was suggested that her alternate plan might cost over 100 billion pounds. The administration, however, could afford to borrow additional money to pay for help for people and businesses, according to the letter that Kwasi Kwarteng, the minister of commerce and a politician who is predicted to succeed her as finance minister, wrote on Monday. Truss suggested throughout her presidential campaign that she would defy tradition by eliminating tax increases and other fees that some economists claim would cause inflation.

Some investors have been prompted to sell govt bonds and the pound because of this and a pledge to evaluate the Bank of England’s remit while maintaining its independence. Kwarteng remarked in a Financial Times essay on Monday to calm the markets that while Truss’ government would need “some budgetary easing,” it would do it in a “fiscally prudent way.”

During her presidential campaign, Truss made hints that she would break with convention by cancelling tax increases and cutting other taxes that some experts said would lead to inflation.

A long list of tasks for the new prime minister

Parliamentarians from the opposition argue that the Conservative government’s mismanagement over 12 years was the cause of Truss’s extensive, expensive, and difficult to-do list. Numerous people have called for an early election. Something Truss has said she would not allow. According to veteran Conservative member David Davis in 1979, the challenges she would confront as prime minister were “perhaps the second greatest onerous brief of premier comment prime ministers.”.

According to Reuters, “I don’t suppose any of the candidates, not one of them advancing through it, truly appreciates exactly how large this is going to be” and that the costs might total tens of billions of dollars. Truss has pledged to build a powerful cabinet in place of what one person close to him described as a “presidency” of administration. However, she will need to work hard to win over some members of her party who voted for Sunak in the election.

The Centre for Governance asserted that Truss would start worse than any of her counterparts because her party’s lawmakers did not choose her. The urgent issue of escalating energy prices will be her first point of discussion. Budgets will be severely impacted as the average annual cost of residential power is expected to rise by 80 % in October to 3,549 pounds before climbing to 6,000 pounds in 2023.

Why have there not been elections?

It was always up to the ruling Conservative party to choose Johnson’s replacement. In a parliamentary system like that of the UK, the current government is formed by whichever candidate can win the support of the House of Commons. This typically refers to the party’s leader who secured the most seats in the most recent general election. There is no legal requirement to convene a fresh general election when a prime minister resigns in the middle of a legislative session. Rather, the current ruling party selects a new leader and a new prime minister.

Each political party has its guidelines for choosing a new leader. Before 1965, senior party members were consulted before new Conservative leaders were chosen. Until 1998, only Conservative MPs had the power to elect new leaders. Then, they are elected in a two-stage process in which MPs choose two candidates before party members, or in the case of the Conservative, around 180,000 dues-paying members make the ultimate decision.