All the reaction from Wales as Liz Truss resigns as Prime Minister after just 44 full days in the role
Liz Truss has announced her resignation after a chaotic 44 days in office during which she lost the confidence of Tory MPs and the public and oversaw economic turbulence.
She is set to become the shortest serving Prime Minister in history after she battled an open revolt from Conservatives demanding her departure.
Speaking from a lectern in Downing Street, Ms Truss said she had told the King she was resigning as the leader of the Conservative Party as she recognised she “cannot deliver the mandate” which Tory members gave her little over six weeks ago.
She held talks with the chairman of the 1922 Committee of backbench Conservatives Sir Graham Brady and agreed to a fresh leadership election “to be completed within the next week”.
“This will ensure that we remain on a path to deliver our fiscal plan and maintain our country’s economic stability and national security,” she added, as she was accompanied by husband Hugh O’Leary.
“I will remain as Prime Minister until a successor has been chosen.”
Ms Truss’s resignation came just a little over 24 hours after she told MPs she was “a fighter, not a quitter”.
But her odds of survival were slashed after chaotic scenes in the Commons followed the resignation of Suella Braverman as home secretary.
The number of Tory MPs publicly demanding Ms Truss’s resignation doubled before lunch was over on Thursday, taking the total to 15, but a far greater number were privately agitating for her exit.
Failure
Following Ms Truss’ press conference, First Minister Mark Drakeford said: “This has been a complete and utter failure of government with everyone in this country now having to pay the price.
“The complete lack of leadership is preventing decisions and actions from being taken to deal with the many challenges we are facing and help people over what is going to be a very difficult winter.
“Unfortunately, the deep and intractable divisions within the government means that any successor put forward will face the same set of challenges.
“A General Election is now the only way to end this paralysis.”
Andrew RT Davies, leader of the Conservatives in the Senedd, said: “The Prime Minister has done the right thing and stood down.
“People wherever they live in the UK are rightly concerned about the cost-of-living crisis.
“The new prime minister must grip this situation quickly, and provide leadership, confidence and hope to people across our nation.
“The Conservative Party must rise to this challenge, and deliver for people across Wales and the United Kingdom.”
Circus
Plaid Cymru leader Adam Price and Westminster leader Liz Saville Roberts said in a joint statement: “This chaotic circus is proof once and for all that Westminster will never work for Wales.
“Only Plaid Cymru can offer the communities of Wales a better future.
“Another prime minister gone but there is still no recognition that it’s not the individuals in Downing Street that’s the problem, but the fundamental contradictions within the Tory party as a whole.
“Brexit lies created a vacuum of accountability in Westminster – and allowed talentless zealots to seize the reins of power without an inkling how to use them.
“People in Wales are looking aghast at the chaos after being lectured for years that we need Westminster to survive.
“We urgently need a General Election so that the people of Wales can reject this Westminster chaos at the ballot box.
“There is a duty now on Welsh Conservative MPs to recognise that their Government’s time is up. Unless they do so, this disgraceful chaos will drag on indefinitely.”
Dysfunctional
Welsh Liberal Democrat Leader Jane Dodds said: “Liz Truss was right to resign, but let’s be clear, the problem isn’t just her or any individual Minister – the entire Conservative Party is dysfunctional from top to bottom and is unfit to lead the country.
“Since 2015, the Conservatives have lurched from extreme to extreme, causing economic vandalism on a massive scale. We owe it to the households, individuals and businesses up and down Wales and the rest of the UK who have been hit hard by this crisis, to take firm action now.
“We do not need another Conservative Prime Minister lurching from crisis to crisis, we need a general election, we need the Conservatives out of power and we need real change.
“The Welsh Liberal Democrats are prepared to fight a general election and play our role in removing the Conservative Party from power.”
No mandate
UK Labour leader Sir Keir Starmer demanded a general election “now” so that the nation can have “a chance at a fresh start”.
Without a general election, the Conservatives will be on their third prime minister on the mandate won by Boris Johnson in December 2019.
Sir Keir said: “The Conservative Party has shown it no longer has a mandate to govern.
“The British public deserve a proper say on the country’s future. They must have the chance to compare the Tories’ chaos with Labour’s plans to sort out their mess, grow the economy for working people and rebuild the country for a fairer, greener future.
“We must have a chance at a fresh start. We need a general election – now.”
Democratic imperative
Scotland First Minister Nicola Sturgeon has said a general election was a “democratic imperative” after the resignation of the Prime Minister.
“There are no words to describe this utter shambles adequately,” the First Minister said on Twitter.
“It’s beyond hyperbole – & parody. Reality tho is that ordinary people are paying the price.
“The interests of the Tory party should concern no-one right now.
“A general election is now a democratic imperative.”
Shortest serving
Liz Truss will be the shortest serving prime minister in British history.
She has clocked up just 44 full days in the role – a long way behind the next shortest premiership, that of Tory statesman George Canning, who spent 118 full days as PM in 1827 before dying in office from ill health.
Ms Truss was to have overtaken this number of days on January 3, 2023.
But instead, she will fall short by more than two months, with the next prime minister due to be elected within the next week.
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Thank you. NEXT!
Tanked the economy. Killed off the English queen. Quite a volatile few weeks 😁
Just not Cruella Braverman please. That’s just reaching TOO FAR into the cesspit.
We need a General Election – No more dropped in PMs without a mandate!
Gods yes!
Starmer is no friend of Cymru. But I’d rather a certain level of competence on the other end of the 2 @ phone and all the Tory clowns have had a go and have crashed the union.
Tory grandees are searching for the anointed one in cattle sheds in darkest Nepal with the blessing of the Dalai Lama.
They have tried everywhere else.
😂😂😂🤣🤣🤣 Yes that’s about the level we’re at now.
Actually, they have said there will be a week to elect their next talentless idiot.
This means there will be no time for the dessicated ancient Tory membership to vote for another far right moron.
THAT will tick them off. 😆😆😆😆😆😆😆😆😆😆😆😆😆😆😆😆😆😆😆😆
Less than week ago Andrew RT Davies was calling for a general election if Liz Truss went? https://www.itv.com/news/wales/2022-10-14/welsh-tory-leader-people-must-have-their-say-if-the-pm-cannot-regain-confidence
She’s a ‘fighter not a quitter’….quits 24 hours later!!
Is the lettuce is still around then put the lettuce in charge 😗. Will surely do better than these political cabbages there now.
The best vegetable, I’d say. (Cos, I do.)
My son says the lettuce won handsomely.
It’s not just truss that needs to go, it’s the groups like erg, cfi, iea and all the other self serving interfering groups that need clearing out of Westminster.
Indeed….the ‘tufton street mafia’ have alot to answer for
Truss has been in office proactively for much less than 44 days. Before the fiasco started she choose to mount the catwalk with Charles on an UK jolly. It was after then it began to fall apart, publicly anyhow.
Let’s hear what arsexxxx Davies has to say as he called for a general election if she failed, will he change his tune and increase the number of faces he has by yet another.
When she woke up this morning, Truss heard someone shouting from the street below,
“Curtains for Truss!”
She thought it was a tradesman delivering her new drapes for No.10.
Unfortunately, she was quite mistaken.
Surely a rule exists somewhere, hidden away in a dusty old tombe, that says that in the event of a serving political party being unable to conduct itself in a professional and competent way and pose a danger to the stability of Britain all members of that party must be removed from office and an emergency general election called immediately. All those members should also be banned from being involved in politics ever again and not given any silly cash settlements or fancy pensions. Better still each country in the UK should be allowed to vote for independence.
“Without a general election, the Conservatives will be on their third prime minister on the mandate won by Boris Johnson in December 2019” The mandate won by Boris Johnson. Because let’s not forget that Britain is a country that saw fit to re-elect Boris Johnson, and where the closest thing to an opposition has decided the only way forward is to try and appeal to the sort of people who would re-elect Boris bloody Johnson. It will still be the same profoundly broken society that re-elected Boris Johnson when labour-in-name-only finally shamble back into downing street, with a government that… Read more »
This mess is due to the right wing having the sense to dominate UK politics by cooperating with their least worst enemies. The question is whether the centre left has that much intelligence, at least as far as getting Proportional Representation implemented. Drakeford is for it; Starmer isn’t. What does the future hold?
Surely it’s time for Andrew R2D2 to step up to the plate. cometh the hour cometh the android
What a legacy Liz Truss has. Only in office for 44 days. She now officially is the shortest reign of any PM in British political history. How embarrassing. Politically Truss was transient, a chameleon without morals, who as Foreign Secretary stupidly encouraged people to travel to the Ukraine to fight the Russians. Unprecedented. And as PM literally two weeks in office caused chaos with her mini-budget that nearly crashed the economy. She blamed her chancellor Kwasi Kwarteng, then threw him under the Brexit bus. Arrogantly disrespected both Wales & Scotland’s First Ministers with name-calling and never followed protocol by speaking… Read more »
If it’s left to Tory MPs it will be Rishi Sunak or Penny Mordant. If Tory party members all vote then BOJO will be back at No.10 🙄 Either way it’s a s**t show and the Tories couldn’t organise a party in a brewery 😒
It has already been announced that Truss will receive £18,000 golden goodbye payout for 44 days. I received under £8,000 redundancy payment after 27 years service. Corrupt Britain or what?