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Why the next UK prime minister faces troubled time as British leader

Liz Truss is likely to prevail. But whoever wins the leadership race has at hand huge domestic and external political challenges, including managing a highly divided Conservative party.

    • Legacy of Margaret Thatcher in play in the Conservative leadership contest : PM hopeful Liz Truss is seeking to invoke what she sees as the triumphant, swashbuckling Thatcher of the later years of her prime ministership. 
    • Legacy of Margaret Thatcher in play in the Conservative leadership contest : PM hopeful Liz Truss is seeking to invoke what she sees as the triumphant, swashbuckling Thatcher of the later years of her prime ministership.  AFP
    Published Wed, Aug 10, 2022 · 07:01 PM

    AS BALLOTS go out this week to UK Conservative members, drawing an end to the Boris Johnson prime ministership, the party’s next leader is facing a very troubled time ahead. 

    Recent Conservative chiefs have been elected to much acclaim by the party faithful, but gone on to badly disappoint, and the next leader looks likely to do the same.  Since the Conservatives were elected to government in May 2010, they have had three different leaders so far -- David Cameron, Theresa May and Boris Johnson. 

    From the first week of September, Foreign Secretary Liz Truss looks likely to be the fourth consecutive party leader to hold power as prime minister. The decision will be taken by only around 160,000 Conservative members -- unrepresentative of the UK electorate as a whole -- with a skewing toward being more geographically centred in London and South East England, elderly, and male, than average voters.