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Liz Truss Makes History
…and I have no sympathy whatsoever.
Today, the embattled Prime Minister resigned on the selection of a successor, which is expected within a week. This means that she will have been PM for a grand total of seven weeks.
Technically, the shortest term in office was that of Lord Bath, in 1746, who served only two days before resigning because nobody would work with him. The same thing happened to James Waldegrave in 1757. Neither formed an effective government.
The Duke of Wellington ran a caretaker government for 25 days, which makes the shortest term of office, but do we count somebody who was just keeping the seat warm until the real PM got back from Europe.
If we don’t count those peculiarities, Liz Truss now holds the record for the shortest period in office. Before her, it was George Canning, who served for 119 days before dropping dead in office.
And I have no sympathy whatsoever. Even Wikipedia is burning her with “the death of Queen Elizabeth II, U-turning on government decisions to have tax-cuts in all brackets, and crashing the economy.” (Nobody seriously thinks she did kill the Queen but I have heard the jokes from multiple quarters).
What is clear is that her attempt to be the new Maggie Thatcher failed utterly and nobody likes her any more. Even her friends are…