Liz Truss has taken over as the newest UK prime minister, and Renaud Foucart, a senior lecturer in economics at Lancaster University, joined Cheddar News to discuss the latest leader of Great Britain and her newly appointed cabinet. "So this is not your standard conservative prime minister. She's not coming from Eton. She's actually coming from a family which is more liberal and are on the rules in politics are pretty liberal," he said. "But to climb the ladder in the Conservative Party, you need to make a very small subset of people happy, which is perhaps 200,000 people who are a member of the conservatives. So she's someone who has cornered herself in a lot of promises she made to those very narrow, and all elderly, people in order to become prime minister."

Opening Bell

Who Is New UK Prime Minister Liz Truss?

joining us now is renowned for car, senior lecturer in economics at Lancaster University. Renault glad to have you on this morning, let's just start with with who is Liz trust and what do we need to know about her. So this is not your standard conservative prime minister. She's not coming from Eton. She's actually coming from a family which is more liberal and are on the rules in politics are pretty liberal. But to climb the ladder in the Conservative Party, you need to make a very small subset of people happy, which is perhaps 200,000 people who are a member of the conservative. So she's someone who has cornered herself in a lot of promises she made us to those very narrow and all elderly people in order to become prime minister. But herself comes from more diverse backgrounds, has been educated all over England, even in Canada and Cabinet is actually the most diverse ever in in british history is I think not a single white man in every single major part of the, of the government To that point, trust held her first cabinet meeting today after after appointing a diverse team. What else have we seen from her in the 1st 24 hours in office. So the 1st 24 hours will be all about energy prices. This is the big thing on which everyone was waiting for. The prices have been super high in England, like everywhere else in Europe since the last month. But the problem that there was no one in power. So other countries have started to have big subsidies program, big program have transferred to households in the UK. Everyone was waiting for this truck. So in the next day she will come up with the package, people say several hundreds of billions of pounds. So this is more than the pandemic package in order to try to freeze prices of energy. But the problem is that she's not the only one doing this all over. You have people start subsidizing energy and there is a scarcity of gas. So Russia stop North Stream, so there's no more Russia, Almost normal Russian gas coming to europe and all those european countries needs to somehow find a way to coordinate to decrease demand and to protect consumers. And that would be a big job in the next 24 hours and next day arguably one of the biggest issues for her to undertake is just this this issue with record inflation in the U. K. I mean the cost of living crisis that's resulting in that the labor shortage, that's a part of that. What is is you know, trust coming up against and how quickly could she bring this company back on the right path on top of how much pressure is there for her to do that swiftly. So has said that inflation is not our business is the business of the central bank. So she has made promises about decreasing taxes, which should actually organize inflation. She's also uh made communities about decreasing taxes not only for cooperation but not increasing, decreasing them for for workers. And she comes at a place at the point of inflation in europe is really driven by energy prices. The idea is that by by somehow keeping energy prices, she can decrease inflation. So that would be the way she would, she would fight inflation is by decreasing energy prices. And for the rest, she hoped that the Bank of England raised interest rates fast enough to take to put things into control. How do you think Trust leadership, what will differ from Boris johnson's? While Laurie johnson was all over the place, he was saying anything to make everyone happy. Trust is somehow more articulate, you know, you know where she comes from. She she said very clearly what she wants to do is to grow the british economy and she's willing to take a lot of them for that. She's willing to take a lot of popularity for that. But she has this very cheery in moto that it's only through growth that you make. In contrast, johnson was a leveling up. So you were selected largely by people who are not typical Conservative voters. So people from the north of England from a deprived area. So she is completely different to that extent, how she thinks she can be related by being putting herself against all those people who put johnson to power is a different question. But in terms of message. I think she's much clearer and she also has cornered herself. She made a lot of promises to the directorate to the people who voted the members of the Conservative Party. And no, she needs to make them happy. Because if not, she will not be prime minister in six months, they will find somebody else. She's already the prime minister in a few years. They're replacing them very quickly. When the Conservative member of parliament or the member of the Conservative Party are not happy, they keep the prime minister out and they put a new one. I really appreciate your time and your insight. We're gonna have to leave it there. Renault for Car, senior lecturer in Economics at Lancaster University.