Liz Truss, the favourite to be UK’s next prime minister, had an affair with a married MP
There’s a certain irony to the Conservative Party booting out Boris Johnson, only to - probably - replace him with Liz Truss.
There’s a certain irony to the Conservative Party booting out Boris Johnson, only to - probably - replace him with Liz Truss.
Mr Johnson was left with no option but to quit after a series of mostly personal scandals plagued his premiership.
He eventually walked from the job after it emerged that he failed to act on allegations a senior member of his staff had groped men.
But he was lucky to survive with his job months earlier after he was fined for breaking lockdown rules by attending a birthday party thrown in his honour at Downing Street.
Let’s not also forget the claims he offered his wife Carrie - then his lover - a plum job in the Foreign Office on a rather healthy salary while he was Foreign Secretary.
Or, for that matter, the question mark over who paid for his soon-to-be vacated Downing Street flat to be decorated in garish wallpaper of Carrie’s choice.
And then there were the revelations about his intriguingly close friendship with a blonde US tech entrepreneur while he was Mayor of London.
And his four-year affair with a journalist that got him sacked from the shadow cabinet back when he was a junior MP.
The list goes on.
But in attempt to wipe the slate clean and start afresh, the Conservatives have forgotten one important thing.
Ms Truss is no angel, either.
She vowed she had “no skeletons in my closet” during a grilling by Sky News’ Kay Burley last week.
And while that may be true, Ms Truss would probably rather people did not bring up her affair with a married MP, which dragged on for 18 months in 2004 and 2005.
The now Foreign Secretary had been sleeping with Mark Field, all while married to “love of her life” Hugh O’Leary, who she wed in 2000.
Mr Field had been her mentor, although as one senior Tory put it at the time, he “took his mentoring duties more seriously than intended”.
Ms Truss told Mr O’Leary she was pregnant a few weeks after the affair ended, the Daily Mail reported at the time, and told friends the baby was her husband’s.
Mr O’Leary, an accountant who now has two children with Ms Truss, ultimately forgave her, but Mr Field’s wife of 12 years was less understanding and filed for divorce.
And that should have been the end of the matter.
But unfortunately for Ms Truss, the story just would not go away.
In 2009, she ran to be the Conservative candidate for the safe seat of South West Norfolk, in the south east of England.
At the selection meeting, she failed to mention her affair - Why would she? it was ancient history at this point - and no one asked about it.
That very evening, when local Conservative members got home, they Googled Ms Truss’ name.
To their horror, they discovered her four-year-old affair and rallied together to try to strip her of her candidacy.
Despite their best efforts, the outraged group - branded the Turnip Taliban by some sections of the media because of their traditional views - were unable to cause her deselection and Ms Truss ultimately went on to become the area’s MP.
Of course, Ms Truss is not the only senior Tory to have had an affair.
Mr Johnson himself was sacked as shadow arts minister and Conservative Party vice-chairman after his affair with journalist Petronella Wyatt came to light.
The married MP and deputy editor of The Spectator magazine had been sleeping with her from 2000 to 2004, and was even said to have promised to leave his wife for her.
Ms Wyatt fell pregnant and had an abortion during their affair.
Conservative leader Michael Howard went on to sack Mr Johnson over the matter of “personal morality”.
And another Conservative prime minister, John Major, had a four-year affair of his own when he was then-leader Margaret Thatcher’s chief whip.
His dalliance with Tory colleague Edwina Currie remained a secret until her tell-all diaries were released in 2002, in which she described Mr Major as a “sexy beast”.
They were both married at the time, and Ms Currie claimed they only ended their affair in 1988 when he was promoted to Chief Secretary to the Treasury, and they felt they could not risk getting caught.
But it’s not just Ms Truss’ affair that’s casting a shadow over her bid for the top job.
She faces an awkward meeting with the Queen if Her Majesty does summon her to make her Prime Minister - because the Foreign Secretary at one point called for the monarchy to be abolished.
While Ms Truss may be on the righter-leaning side of the Conservative Party these days, she was once a member of the left-leaning Liberal Democrat party.
A rather cringeworthy video from her student years shows Ms Truss giving an impassioned speech in favour of getting rid of the monarchy in Britain.
“We Liberal Democrats believe in opportunity for all,” she says in a rallying cry,
“I was being interviewed by Newsnight earlier this afternoon and we were filmed asking members of the public what they thought about the Monarchy.
“We came across a group of three people. I’d say they were around 50, 60. Looked fairly middle class, rather smart and in fact rather reactionary to be perfectly frank.
“We asked them they’re opinion of the monarch, do you know what they said? They said: ‘Abolish them. We’ve had enough’.”
She added: “We Liberal Democrats believe in opportunity for all. We do not believe people are born to rule.”
When asked about those comments recently, Ms Truss said she had been “wrong” at the time.
Never seen this astonishing footage before this evening of @trussliz when she was a @LibDems and all for abolishing the monarchy. pic.twitter.com/DR8YQ3miHz
— Liz Webster (@LizWebsterLD) July 20, 2022
It’s not just old comments coming back to bite Ms Truss.
She had to perform a major U-turn last week after calling for public sector workers outside London to have their salaries drastically slashed.
Ms Truss had planned for regional pay boards to set wages for those outside of the capital, ina bid to save £8.8 billion ($15.3 billion).
It was quickly pointed out by furious Conservative MPs that cutting voters’ pay packets was unlikely to lead to them to support the party in any upcoming election.
It also went against the party’s mantra of ‘Levelling Up’ areas outside of London.
Ms Truss said she had been “misinterpreted”.
“I don’t want people to be concerned, so I’m being very clear, we will not be going ahead with the regional pay board... I’m being honest that there were concerns expressed,” she said.
“I believe my policy was being misinterpreted, I want to be clear with the public, that I will not be going ahead with the regional pay boards. I’m somebody who is honest and upfront and I do what I say I will do and I’m being clear I will not be doing that.”
Her leadership rival, former Chancellor Rishi Sunak, has arguably committed the worst faux-pas of the campaign, however.
He was caught on camera appearing to boast about shifting funding from deprived areas of the UK to more affluent Conservative-leaning parts of the country.
Speaking in the upmarket town of Tunbridge Wells, outside of London in the south east of England.
“I managed to start changing the funding formulas to make sure areas like this are getting the funding they deserved,” Mr Sunak said.
“We inherited a bunch of formulas from Labour that shoved all the funding into deprived urban areas and that needed to be undone. I started the work of undoing that.”
The video plays into the idea that Mr Sunak, who has a combined fortune of £730 million ($1.3 billion) with his wife Akshata Murthy, is out of touch with normal, working-class people.
Mr Sunak’s previous jobs include being a hedge fund manager for Goldman Sachs, and his wife is the daughter of one of the richest men in India.
He came under fire earlier this year when it emerged that his wife had been avoiding as much as £2.1 million ($3.65 million) a year in tax by declaring that her main home was outside of the UK.
She had not broken the law, and ultimately vowed to change her tax status to ensure she paid full tax in future.
EXC: @RishiSunak told Tories in Tunbridge Wells that as Chancellor he tried to reverse Treasury formulas "that shoved all the funding into deprived urban areas" so areas like theirs could benefit @NewStatesman story: https://t.co/HYwGAdMrFPpic.twitter.com/XGNJRWSlwR
— Rachel Wearmouth (@REWearmouth) August 5, 2022
Mr Sunak is far behind in polls of Conservative members, who will decide the next leader of the party and therefore prime minister by September 5.
The 180,000 members of the party are more likely to lean towards Ms Truss, who backs Brexit and is seen by many as ‘continuity Boris’.
Those on the right of the party favour her low-tax ethos, even if some question whether she has the charisma to convince swing voters when the next general election comes around by January 2025.
The only real victor of the scrap that is engulfing the party is Labour leader Sir Keir Starmer, who will be waiting in the wings until then.
Charles to ‘stay out’ of Republic debate
The King has issued a surprising response to a question about Australia’s future ahead of his five-day tour to the country later this week.
‘Weak’: Truss’ swipe at Albo, west leaders
Former UK prime minister Liz Truss – who lasted just 49 days in the top job before resigning – has taken a swipe at Anthony Albanese while branding the West as “weak”.
British PM’s $12k Swiftie blunder
The UK Prime Minster has paid back nearly $12,000 worth of gifts, including Taylor Swift concert tickets, following a row over donations.