Liz Truss has revealed that Queen Elizabeth II's final warning to her as she became prime minister was simply to “pace yourself” – advice the former leader admits she spectacularly ignored. In her forthcoming memoir, Ten Years To Save The West, Truss recounts her meeting with the monarch at Balmoral in September 2022, when the 96-year-old Queen cautioned that being prime minister is “incredibly ageing”.
Truss, who lasted just 49 days in office before her mini-budget crashed the economy, concedes that she should have heeded the Queen's two words of advice. She describes the monarch as “frailer” than before but still “completely attuned” and “typically sharp and witty”. The meeting lasted around 20 minutes, during which they discussed politics.
The former prime minister also opens up about the emotional toll of the Queen's death, which came just days after she took office. Truss writes of breaking down into “floods of tears on the sofa” while watching the monarch's coffin being taken from Balmoral to Edinburgh, and of feeling overwhelmed by the weight of events occurring “on my watch”.
Her memoir describes the strain of high office more broadly, including an incident as foreign secretary in Spain when she tried to remonstrate with police after motorcade delays, only to be calmed by staff during a “cooling off period at a sherry bar”. Truss also reflects on her first audience with King Charles III, feeling “a bizarre sense of camaraderie” as both navigated unfamiliar territory.
The book, which Truss insists is more a manifesto than a memoir, details her rapid rise and fall, from MP to foreign secretary to the shortest-serving prime minister in British history. Still an MP for South West Norfolk, she has increasingly courted the hard right, including delivering a lecture at the Heritage Foundation in Washington and focusing on the US speaking circuit.
