An infamous cheese speech, and 5 other things to know about UK Prime Minister Liz Truss.

The UK officially has a new Prime Minister - Liz Truss. 

Boris Johnson's successor was confirmed on Monday night Australian time, with Truss winning the Conservative party's leadership contest over Rishi Sunak. Truss will be taking up office immediately, 

She secured the leadership race with 81,326 votes to 60,399 votes, telling Britain after the count was confirmed, "I will deliver a bold plan to cut taxes and grow our economy". 

Watch some of Liz Truss' speech during the Conservative Party leadership race. Post continues below.

Whoever won the new position was always set to inherit a few problems and a bit of a PR nightmare. Johnson was essentially forced out of his PM role by a ministerial revolt a few months back, due to a series of scandals and misdoings. As PM, Truss inherits a struggling economy with cost of living rising, inflation at a 40-year high and the trust of the British public waning.

"I will deliver on the energy crisis, dealing with people's energy bills, but also dealing with the long-term issues we have on energy supply," she promised.

Truss will be meeting with the Queen to be appointed to the top job, travelling to the royal's Balmoral Castle in Scotland rather than at Buckingham Palace due to the Queen's ill health. 

So with Truss taking over the UK's top job, we decided to look back on her career, politics, family life and controversies. 

Here's six things you should know about the UK's new PM Liz Truss.

1. Liz Truss has been compared to Margaret Thatcher. 

There's not many historical figures in the UK that are quite as polarising as the late Margaret Thatcher. Some loved her. Others despised her. But for a decade, she reigned over Downing Street and was the first woman to become the British PM.

Truss herself actually comes from a left-wing background. She grew up in Leeds in Yorkshire and also in Scotland, going to comprehensive (public) schools. Throughout the '80s, Truss lived with her Labour-supporting parents - her mum was even involved in the campaign for nuclear disarmament, where demonstrators shouted: "Maggie, Maggie, Maggie, oot, oot, oot." (To confirm, they did not like Margaret Thatcher.)

While at university, Truss joined the Liberal Democrats movement, before deciding on conservative politics. 

When asked recently if her parents would vote for her in a general election, Truss replied: "Well, I think my mum will, I'm not sure about my dad."

Interestingly, some media reports have even suggested that Truss had deliberately been dressing like Thatcher as of late during the Conservative leadership contest. Although Truss has publicly said she admires much of what Thatcher did, she has also noted that female British Conservative politicians are often all compared to Thatcher, whereas their male counterparts are not. 

When asked last week to name the Conservative party's best leader, Truss said Thatcher, without missing a beat.

"What I sensed in the 1980s is a growing sense of pride in our country and a growing sense of optimism about the future. She was a tremendous leader, a really world-changing leader."

2. As a foreign secretary, Truss has a chequered reputation overseas. 

When Boris Johnson became PM in 2019, Truss was moved to international trade secretary - a job which meant meeting global political and business leaders. By 2021, she was foreign secretary.

Initially, when the Brexit debate arose, Truss positioned herself as wanting Britain to stay in the European Union. But when her side of the Conservative party lost on that issue, she became a staunch advocate for Brexit, and has remained one ever since.

Brexit is the monster under the bed Liz Truss is desperately trying to ignore | Rafael Behr https://t.co/SoxY1NEA66

— The Guardian (@guardian) August 31, 2022

As for her politics on the world stage, it has been mixed.

Truss was championed for her tough stance on Russia and Vladimir Putin, amid the invasion of Ukraine. Although she did at one point "absolutely" endorse the idea of the British public going to fight in Ukraine amid the start of the war. Truss did work hard and pushed for strong sanctions against Russian oligarchs, especially those living in London, of whom there were many.

Putin is therefore not a fan of Truss, (but he is not a fan of the majority of Western leaders.)

What perhaps is a little more concerning is the frosty relations Truss has with some of Europe's leaders - including France and Brussels.

According to a Belgian author who wrote an article for the Washington Post this week, Truss is seen widely as an "agitator" and "anti-Europe opportunist" in Brussels, amid her Brexit policies and the impact of those on the European Union.

As for France, just this month, Truss suggested that "the jury is still out" on whether French President Emmanuel Macron is a "friend or foe" to Britain. And given the strong alliance between France and Britain throughout history (two world wars and a close trading partner), it angered Macron. 

Macron responded: "If the French and British are not capable of saying whether we are friends or enemies - the term is not neutral - we are going to have a problem.

3. Truss has plans to cut taxes for the rich.

In a recent interview with the BBC, Truss was asked: "Is it fair to give the wealthiest people more money back?"

Truss said it was fair that her planned tax cut would benefit the highest earners 250 times more than the poorest, arguing it was wrong to view all economic policy through the "lens of redistribution". 

And just like Thatcher, Truss isn't very keen on 'handouts' to the British public. 

Liz Truss has just become the bookies' favourite to become Britain's next Prime Minister.

Here's a reminder of some of her finest moments. pic.twitter.com/RxCmlB91qw

— Adam Bienkov (@AdamBienkov) July 19, 2022

Like Australia and across the world, cost of living remains an issue in Britain too. With rising energy bills, outgoing PM Boris Johnson said he was "absolutely certain" the next PM would help ease rising costs. 

For Truss, she recently said that financial assistance isn't high on her agenda, although she does have some plans - not yet publicly known - surrounding energy bills. 

"The first thing we should do as Conservatives is help people have more money of their own," she said. "What I don't support is taking money off people in tax and then giving it back to them in handouts."

4. Her climate change policies aren't strong.

There is some concern among the British public that Truss - and more widely her government's position on climate change policies, is weak.

During the Conservative party leadership race, both she and her opponent, Rishi Sunak, supported lifting England's embargo on fracking. Truss has even said she wants "fields to be cleared of solar panels". Both leadership candidates believed that Britain needs more fossil fuels in the short to medium term.

And according to reporting from the Times, Truss also wants to issue new licensing rounds for oil and gas extraction in the North Sea.

Ultimately, time will tell as to where her policies will stand on greener issues. 

5. Liz Truss made quite the speech on... cheese back in 2015.

At the 2015 Conservative party conference, Truss used the platform to talk about her desire to strengthen Britain's farming industry and build more exporting opportunities. It was a message widely accepted by both sides of government, but her delivery is what made her speech become a meme. 

"I want to see us eating more British food here in Britain," she began.

"At the moment we import more than two thirds of all our apples. We import nine tenths of all of our pears," she said.

And the clincher: "We import two thirds of our cheese. That is a disgrace."

She said it with such conviction and a tone of disgust that would make you think she was talking about a serious matter of politics. But no. She was talking about... cheese. And apples.

Liz Truss has just become the bookies' favourite to become Britain's next Prime Minister.

Here's a reminder of some of her finest moments. pic.twitter.com/RxCmlB91qw

— Adam Bienkov (@AdamBienkov) July 19, 2022

"I will not rest until the British apple is back at the top of the tree. I want our children to grow up, knowing the taste of a British apple. From the apples that dropped on Isaac Newton's head to the orchards and nursery rhymes, this fruit has always been part of Britain."

Perhaps the best part of the speech was the fact Truss paused and waited for applause after each statement.

And if you are wondering what her favourite cheese is - it's Stinking Bishop, Binham Blue and Wells Alpine, all produced on the Norfolk coast in the UK which also happens to be her constituency. With all this in mind, it's not surprising that Truss is a big Brexit defender.

6. Her marriage troubles have made headlines.

Truss shares two teenage girls with her husband of 22 years, Hugh O'Leary, who is an accountant.

They met one another at a Conservative party Conference in 1997 and she said of their first date: "I invited him ice skating and he sprained his ankle."

The couple were married in 2000.

In 2006, however, they hit a rocky patch when it was revealed that Truss had been having an affair with married Conservative MP Mark Field. Her marriage survived, but his ended. Neither have since commented on the affair, but Truss said years later that she is "happily married".

Feature Image: Getty/Mamamia.

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