20th October 2022: Liz Truss resigns as the Leader of the Conservative party in U.K. On Wednesday, 19th Oct, Truss had assured the Parliament, in response to a question by an MP, that she was a “fighter, not a quitter”. This will lead to the party choosing a new leader, third time in three years. The new leader will take over as the Prime Minister within a week. On October 18, 2022, YouGov polling suggested the following choice of Tory MPs:
Boris Johnson: 32%
Rishi Sunak: 23%
Ben Wallace: 10%
Penny Mordant: 9%
Kemi Badenoch: 8%
Jeremy Hunt: 7%.
The Tory party has not yet defined the full process to be used to instal the new PM within a week. The National Cyber Security Centre has contacted the Conservative party over its leadership voting preparations, amid concerns a rogue state could attempt to interfere with the contest if it is done using Internet.
Liz Truss, 47, was appointed as the PM by Queen Elizabeth on Sept 6 and she may be the Prime Minister with the shortest tenure in British history. Truss had promised to make Britain a low tax and high growth country. Her first Finance Minister, Kwasi Kwarteng, announced $ 48 billion in unfunded tax cuts. This led to an emergency intervention by the Central Bank of England and criticism from IMF. On October 14, Kwarteng was sacked as the Finance Minister and Jeremy Hunt took over as the new Finance Minister. But within a week, Liz Truss resigned.
The Labour party has demanded a General Election and Paul Scully, the levelling up minister has rejected the demand.