Liz Truss says Queen told her to ‘pace yourself’ – but admits she didn’t listen

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Liz Truss has revealed the late Queen Elizabeth II advised her to “tempo your self” throughout their first and remaining assembly as prime minister.

In her new e-book, Ten Years to Save the West, Truss admitted she didn’t take the monarch’s recommendation after they met in September 2022 to verify her as Britain’s new prime minister.

Of her historic assembly at Balmoral in Scotland, which occured simply two days earlier than the monarch’s dying, Truss says the 96-year-old the Queen “appeared to have grown frailer” since she had final been within the public eye.

“We spent round 20 minutes discussing politics. She was fully attuned to every thing that was occurring, in addition to being sometimes sharp and witty,” she writes.

“In direction of the top of our dialogue, she warned me that being prime minister is extremely ageing. She additionally gave me two phrases of recommendation: ‘Tempo your self.’ Possibly I ought to have listened.”

On the assembly, the Queen was pictured utilizing a strolling stick and smiling warmly as she greeted Ms Truss in entrance of an open hearth in her sitting room.

The assembly produced the final public {photograph} of the late Queen earlier than she died on September 8 2022 at her Scottish residence.

Ms Truss’ e-book dives into the go to amongst different tales from her brief tenure as prime minister which lasted simply 49 days.

She travelled to Balmoral Fortress to fulfill Elizabeth II on September 6 and described the monarch as “frail” however “mentally alert” previous to the e-book’s launch.

Ms Truss mentioned that she had been summoned to the Scottish palace as a result of Queen’s well being. Nonetheless, she discovered her namesake was “completely on prime” of issues and appeared intent on assembly once more.

“She was very, very eager to reassure me that we’d be assembly once more quickly… It was essential to her,” Ms Truss advised GB Information in September 2023.

“She was completely on prime of what was occurring. Though she was bodily fairly frail, she was completely mentally alert.”

Ms Truss added that there was no suggestion the Queen is likely to be about to move away. Truss writes in her new e-book that the information got here as “a profound shock” to her which left her considering “Why me? Why now?”

“I used to be clearly solely within the first few days of the job of being prime minister. I used to be interested by many alternative issues,” Ms Truss advised GB in 2023.

“However the assumption completely was that this might be the primary of many conferences [with the Queen].

“She was very decided to do her responsibility, proper to the top. We had a really, excellent assembly. She was upbeat.”

Whereas selling her e-book to the Mail on Sunday final September, Ms Truss revealed that her previously shut political friendship with Kwasi Kwarteng – who she sacked as chancellor – is successfully over.

And he or she admitted she “nonetheless struggles to compute what occurred” throughout her turbulent time in Downing Road.

“I used to be pushing towards a system and towards an orthodoxy that was progressively transferring to the left,” she mentioned, singling out the Financial institution of England and the Workplace for Funds Accountability as she recalled the “seismic” interval in politics.