Who Is The Shortest Serving UK Prime Minister?

As of October 2022, Liz Truss is expected to be the shortest-serving prime minister when she announced her plans to resign 45 days into her tenure amidst the October 2022 United Kingdom government crisis. The previous shortest time served was George Canning, who served for less than four months before his death.

Mary Elizabeth Truss is a British politician who has served as Prime Minister of the United Kingdom since 6 September 2022. She announced her intention to resign as prime minister on 20 October 2022. She will continue to serve until a successor is chosen “within the next week”.

She had previously held various Cabinet offices under prime ministers David Cameron, Theresa May, and Boris Johnson, most recently as foreign secretary from 2021 to 2022. Truss has been a Member of Parliament (MP) for South West Norfolk since 2010.

Truss attended Merton College, Oxford, and was the president of Oxford University Liberal Democrats. In 1996, she joined the Conservative Party.

She worked at Shell and Cable & Wireless and was deputy director of the think tank Reform. After two unsuccessful attempts to be elected to the UK House of Commons, she was elected as the MP for South West Norfolk at the 2010 UK general election.

As a backbencher, she called for reform in several policy areas including childcare, mathematics education, and the economy. She founded the Free Enterprise Group of Conservative MPs and wrote or co-wrote several papers and books, including After the Coalition (2011) and Britannia Unchained (2012).