Who from Liz Truss or Rishi Sunak will be elected Prime Minister of the United Kingdom and will succeed Boris Johnson? The two finalists will be decided by some 200,000 members of the Conservative Party before an announcement of the results on September 5th. The only certainty is that the head of the British government will be either, for the first time, a non-white man, or for the third time, a woman.
Liz Truss, Margaret Thatcher and free trade
After Margaret Thatcher and Theresa May, will a third woman lead the United Kingdom? That’s what Liz Truss hopes. The current Minister of Foreign Affairs is ahead in the polls among this very small and male electorate.
Presented as the candidate for “change” and as a new Margaret Thatcher, whom she has admired since childhood, the head of diplomacy is described as a champion of free trade and campaigns by wanting to embody the essence of British conservatism.
After ten years in the private sector as a commercial director, she was first a local councilor in south-east London and then became an MP in 2010, for the constituency of South West Norfolk.
It was in 2012 that Liz Truss entered the government and continued from the portfolios. The 46-year-old woman stood out during the delicate negotiations on the post-Brexit provisions, in particular on the British province of Northern Ireland.
Her presence in the conservative ranks is far from obvious, because Liz Truss grew up in a very left-wing environment. A graduate of the prestigious University of Oxford, she is the daughter of a father who is a university professor of mathematics and a mother who is an activist for nuclear disarmament. As a child, she accompanied him to demonstrations. By her own admission, she caused the amazement of her family by finally positioning herself frankly on the right.
Rishi Sunak, the youngest British Prime Minister?
At 42, Rishi Sunak could become Her Majesty’s youngest Prime Minister and also the first non-white man to hold this position. Born to parents from Punjab and married to one of India’s wealthiest people, Rishi Sunak is a former Goldman Sachs banker.
Eternal smile on his lips and air of the first of the class, he was propelled at the start of the Covid-19 pandemic, to the functions of great treasurer. He quickly made himself popular there by largely untying the purse strings, when Boris Johnson was criticized for his management of the Covid-19 epidemic, before being criticized for not supporting households enough in the face of the cost. of life.
Splashed by the “partygate”, holiday scandal in Downing Street during confinement, Rishi Sunak was fined for his presence at a surprise birthday party organized for Boris Johnson.
Born May 12, 1980 in Southampton, on the south coast of England, he is the eldest of three children and the son of a general practitioner in the public health system and a pharmacist. He notably attended Winchester College, a very chic boarding school for boys, and then studied politics, philosophy and economics. He evolved within the universities of Oxford, in England, and Stanford, in the United States.
A fan of cricket and football, a fan of “Star Wars”, this owner of a Georgian mansion in a village in Yorkshire is considered to be one of the richest British MPs. A fortune that could also discredit him in a country that sees the cost of living soar for the most modest.