Liz Truss has resigned as the United Kingdom’s prime minister six weeks after being elected leader of the Conservative Party.
It makes her the UK’s shortest-serving leader ever, with another Conservative leadership election due to take place within a week.
Truss followed Margaret Thatcher and Theresa May as Britain’s third female premier. She succeeded Boris Johnson, who resigned in July after a series of scandals.
Throughout her political career, Truss has been compared to Thatcher, who, for many on the right, remains the benchmark for Conservative leaders. Like Thatcher, Truss has come from relatively humble beginnings to dominate a world inhabited largely by men.
Truss was elected to Parliament in 2010. In a relatively short period of time, she established herself as a political force of nature who pursues her agenda with relentless vigor and unequivocal enthusiasm. She served under three prime ministers in several different cabinet jobs, most recently as foreign secretary.
But weeks into her premiership, Truss was already under fire for a controversial mini-budget full of unfunded tax-cutting measures that sent financial markets into meltdown. At one point, the pound sank to its lowest level against the dollar in decades.