Lizz Truss wins Conservative Party leadership election, and will be the Prime Minister

Mary Elizabeth Truss has won the Conservative Party leadership election, and will be the Prime Minister.

PM-elect Truss beat Rishi Sunak at the ballot box of a poll of Conservative party members.

The result is not that unexpected with consistent polling having Sunak at just 2-5% of bookmaker odds throughout the electoral process.

Truss received 81,326 votes to Rishi Sunak’s 60,399, gaining the support of 57.4 per cent and 42.6 per cent of the membership respectively. The turnout was 83 per cent.

Tomorrow Ms Truss will travel, with current PM Johnson, to Balmoral in Scotland to officially become the Prime Minister after a meeting with the Queen. PM Johnson is expected to resign at some point tomorrow.

It is expected Truss will then travel back to London to take residence in Downing Street as her term of Prime Minister begins.

I'd like to congratulate @trussliz.

We now need to work together, with urgency, to tackle the #CostOfLivingCrisis and save millions from hardship this winter.

There is no more time to waste – action is needed now.

— Mark Drakeford (@PrifWeinidog) September 5, 2022

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Commenting on Liz Truss’ election Welsh Conservative leader Andrew RT Davies MS said:

 “I am delighted that Liz has been elected party leader and will be our next Prime Minister, especially having backed her during the contest.

“Throughout her political career and this contest, we have seen someone with the tenacity, ideas, and stoicism required to lead the Conservatives into the next election and the country through a difficult period.

“There is a lot of work to be getting on with, especially in tackling the cost-of-living crisis, and I look forward to seeing Liz’s ideas put into action to alleviate the struggle millions are facing.

“It is now time to unite behind our new leader, and further build on our record of delivering for Wales and the wider United Kingdom.”

Labour’s Shadow Secretary of State for Wales Jo Stevens responding to the announcement of the new Conservative Party Leader:

“Liz Truss has her fingerprints all over the crime scene of the past 12 years of Tory failure. She reliably parroted Boris Johnson’s lies and voted for the 15 tax rises the Tories have imposed in the last two years. At every turn, she’s shown people she can’t be trusted.

Households right across Wales needed action from the Tory Government to tackle their cost of living catastrophe months ago. Nearly nine weeks on from the start of her leadership campaign, Truss still has no plan and no ideas to address the crisis people and businesses are dealing with.”

Few expect Liz Truss to be a good prime minister, or even an improvement over Boris Johnson, according to YouGov polling.

Only 12% of Britons expect that Truss will be a great or good prime minister, with half (52%) expecting her to be poor or terrible.

As Boris Johnson packs his bags in anticipation of Monday’s results, he leaves a legacy only 22% of Britons consider good or great, with 55% assessing his time in charge as poor or terrible.

When asked to compare the two directly, Britons are divided on whether Truss will be a general improvement on the old model.

A quarter (24%) expect her to be better than Boris Johnson, while an equal proportion expect her to be worse.

A further 37% of Britons believe she will be much the same as her predecessor.

Conservative voters more obviously consider Truss to be a downgrade from Johnson: 43% think she will be worse, more than twice the number who think she will be better (20%).

Compared to other recent prime ministers, Truss is seen as likely to do worse than all of them (a list going as far back as Margaret Thatcher, whom Truss has tried to imitate but is seen as inferior to by 45% of Britons and 60% of Conservative voters).