Liz Truss becomes new UK PM after audience with queen

BALLATER, United Kingdom: Liz Truss on Tuesday officially became Britain´s new prime minister, at an audience with head of state Queen Elizabeth II after the resignation of Boris Johnson.

The former foreign secretary, 47, was seen in an official photograph shaking hands with the monarch to accept her offer to form a new government and become the 15th prime minister of her 70-year reign.

The symbolic ceremony took place at the sovereign´s remote Balmoral retreat in the Scottish Highlands, as the queen, 96, was deemed unfit to return to London due to ill health. "The queen received in audience the right honourable Elizabeth Truss MP today and requested her to form a new administration," Buckingham Palace said in a statement.

"Ms Truss accepted Her Majesty´s offer and kissed hands upon her appointment as prime minister. The last time the handover of power took place at Balmoral was in 1885, when queen Victoria was on the throne.

Normally, the outgoing and incoming prime minister meet the queen in quick succession at Buckingham Palace in central London. It has only been held once outside London since 1952, when Winston Churchill met the new queen at Heathrow Airport after the death of her father, king George VI.

Truss, who was announced winner of an internal vote of Conservative party members on Monday, after a gruelling contest that began in July. She is expected to make her first speech as prime minister outside 10 Downing Street at about 4:00 pm (1500 GMT) on Tuesday -- weather permitting. Heavy rain and storms are forecast, mirroring the gloomy economic situation that she and her new senior ministers will now have to tackle.

The appointments are due to be finalised before she hosts her first cabinet meeting and faces questions in parliament on Wednesday. Business Secretary Kwasi Kwarteng is expected to become finance minister, with Attorney General Suella Braverman moved to the tricky brief of home secretary, and James Cleverly to foreign affairs. If confirmed, it would mean no white men in any of Britain´s four main ministerial posts for the first time ever.

The incoming prime minister faces a daunting to-do list, with the UK in the grip of its worst economic crisis in decades, with double-digit inflation and sky-rocketing gas and electricity bills. Truss, who touts herself as a free-market liberal, has promised tax cuts to stimulate growth, despite warnings that greater borrowing could make inflation worse.

With arguably the toughest brief at a time of economic crisis, Kwasi Kwarteng was appointed by Truss to become Britain´s first black chancellor of the exchequer. As the first black foreign secretary, James Cleverly will offer a different diplomatic face for a country that once ruled a quarter of the planet.

Suella Braverman, whose family roots are in India, was meanwhile named home secretary with oversight of policing and immigration. The new ministers are ardent opponents of "woke" awareness in race, and support UK plans to send would-be migrants arriving by boat to Rwanda.