Liz Truss during a meeting in Birmingham, August 23, 2022. RUI VIEIRA / AP Peaceful back alleys, rows of villas of blond Yorkshire stone, a vast school establishment hidden in the greenery, a few clean pubs… To the north from Leeds, the Roundhay district contrasts pleasantly with the rest of this Midlands metropolis, a former textile capital that has become a bustling but charmless commercial and university centre. It is in this bourgeois enclave that the Minister for Foreign Affairs, Mary Elizabeth Truss, 47, the new British Prime Minister, elected by the members at the head of the Conservative Party, Monday September 5 – she will be appointed to Downing Street by the Queen Elizabeth II, Tuesday – passed her teenage years. A studious student, the third woman – and third conservative – in this post, after Margaret Thatcher and Theresa May, attended the Roundhay School, a reputable public establishment, before landing a place at Oxford University, option PPE (politics, philosophy, economy), the royal way to frequent the alleys of power. Read also: Article reserved for our subscribers United Kingdom: a primary for the succession of Boris Johnson disconnected from the concerns of the British In July, at the start of the primary of the Conservative Party caused by the fall of Boris Johnson, pushed towards the exit by his own deputies, following the “partygate”, Liz Truss said that she had been educated “in the heart of the red wall” (the north of England, renowned for its impoverished areas) and that she had come across students “that [son] school dropped out. These remarks did not go down well, the local media reporting the outraged reactions of residents claiming that their neighborhood had nothing underprivileged. Right-wing campaign Passing through Leeds on July 28 to take part in the first public debate opposing her to the ex-chancellor of the exchequer, Rishi Sunak, Liz Truss again summoned these disputed memories. A way for this politician, blonde square and ivory skin, follower of power dresses and very high heels, to refine an image of provincial “anti-establishment”; a true “Yorkshire girl”, as she likes to point out, who would take from this region “a great determination and the habit of speaking truth”. “This is what we need in Downing Street in these times of crisis, someone who is bold, who rejects the status quo,” she added, in Leeds. Read also: United Kingdom: understand everything about the election of the future prime minister Liz Truss nevertheless settled in Greenwich years ago, a privileged district of south-east London. She comes from a middle-class family: her father, John, a university mathematics professor, and her mother, Priscilla, a left-wing activist nurse, met on the benches of the prestigious University of Cambridge. . But her small departures from reality did not harm her with members of the Conservative Party, who had to choose between her and Mr. Sunak. You have 74.55% of this article left to read. The following is for subscribers only.