Good morning. UK prime minister Liz Truss will go down in history as her country’s shortest-lasting leader after bowing to the near-inevitable and saying she will step down. But now the question arises: who can replace her? Will this see the return of Boris Johnson?
Liz Truss has resigned as UK prime minister and will step down after a week-long emergency contest to find her successor. After just six weeks in the job, she said she “cannot deliver the mandate on which I was elected by the Conservative party”. It follows a turbulent 45 days in office during which Truss’s mini-budget crashed the markets, she lost two key ministers and shed the confidence of almost all her own MPs. Truss’s term was an “ill-fated ideological experiment” that leaves her party’s reputation further damaged, writes Pippa Crear. Labour leader Keir Starmer has called for an immediate general election, but the Conservatives are focused on choosing a new leader with Boris Johnson, Penny Mordaunt and Rishi Sunak in the early running.
