Particulars of her first and final assembly with the late Queen and fleas being in No. 10 are among the many tales revealed in Liz Truss’ new memoir.
The primary excerpt of her ebook, titled Ten Years to Save the West, made a number of candid confessions together with how her husband predicted how her brief premiership would finish in tears and that she didn’t take heed to the Queen’s recommendation.
The bombshell revelations embrace that she spent a number of of her six weeks as prime minister “itching” as a result of Downing Avenue was “infested” with the pests.
In extracts from the ebook revealed by the Each day Mail, Truss admitted she went into “a state of shock” when instructed of Queen Elizabeth II’s dying in 2022.
Of her historic assembly at Balmoral in Scotland, which occurred simply two days earlier than the monarch’s dying, Truss says the 96-year-old Queen “appeared to have grown frailer” since she had final been within the public eye.
Nevertheless, she wrote in an excerpt revealed within the Each day Mail that there “merely wasn’t any sense that the top would come as rapidly because it did.”
The memoir particulars how the “machine kicked into motion” when phrase reached Quantity 10 that the Queen wouldn’t be capable of be a part of through video hyperlink, as deliberate, for the formal swearing-in of recent ministers.
“My black mourning costume was fetched from my home in Greenwich, south London,” she wrote.
“Frantic cellphone calls passed off with Buckingham Palace. I began to consider what on earth I used to be going to say if the unthinkable occurred.
“On Thursday, we obtained the solemn information that the Queen had died peacefully at Balmoral. To be instructed this on solely my second full day as Prime Minister felt completely unreal. In a state of shock, I discovered myself pondering: ‘Why me, why now?’”
She shares particulars of her first and closing assembly with the Queen.
Ms Truss wrote: “That Tuesday, September 6, 2022, she was standing up as she greeted me in her drawing room. I used to be instructed she’d made a particular effort to take action however she gave no trace of discomfort all through our dialogue.
“This was solely my second one-on-one viewers together with her. On the earlier event, after I’d been faraway from a unique job within the Authorities, she’d remarked that being a girl in politics was robust.
“For about 20 minutes, we mentioned politics — and it was clear she was utterly attuned to all the pieces that was occurring, in addition to being usually sharp and witty. There merely wasn’t any sense that the top would come as rapidly because it did.
Ms Truss, whose tenure in Downing Avenue lasted simply 49 days after her disastrous mini-budget unleashed financial chaos, additionally revealed the late Queen instructed her to “tempo your self”.
“Possibly I ought to have listened,” the previous PM mentioned.
She was additionally scathing concerning the realities of dwelling in No 10.
“The place was infested with fleas,” she wrote. “Some claimed that this was all the way down to Boris and Carrie’s canine Dilyn, however there was no conclusive proof. In any case, the complete place needed to be sprayed with flea killer. I spent a number of weeks itching.”
The “most tough factor to get used to”, she wrote, was that “spontaneous excursions had been all however unimaginable: I used to be successfully a prisoner”.
She recruited her teenage daughters, Liberty and Frances, to run errands “as a result of it was simpler for them to depart the buildings with out being noticed”. Of their time in probably the most well-known addresses within the nation she mentioned: “I’m happy they at the very least managed to slot in a sleepover with their mates. They usually did get to go to the nuclear bunker.”
Earlier than shifting into Downing Avenue, Ms Truss revealed that her husband predicted her premiership “would all finish in tears’ in her new memoir.
The previous prime minister describes the second she learnt that her predecessor, Boris Johnson, was pressured to resign whereas in Bali on the time as international secretary and mentioned: “As I walked alongside the seashore in Indonesia I began crying.”
“Even Hugh [her husband], who predicted it could all finish in tears, accepted that this was the second I used to be anticipated to run and that if I didn’t, folks would say I had bottled it,” Truss writes.
However the MP for South West Norfolk defended her method in her memoir, suggesting the “pro-Stay” Treasury, Financial institution of England and Workplace for Price range Accountability had been “limitations to our plans”.
